Where Your Loyalties Lie
by baka-neko-fan
Summary: (Placed immediately after We Are A Family pt. 2) When Toothless kidnaps Hiccup, all hell breaks loose, and Hiccup comes to find that he and Toothless really were made to be family... But has this revelation come too late?
1. Kidnapping

This story takes place pretty much immediately after We Are a Family part 2 (The Season Finale of Riders of Berk.) I have plans for this story. Oh do I have plans. Possibly even character deaths. I'm looking at you, Mildew. Anyway, some things might seem a bit far-fetched, but hey, it's a fanfiction, and it's more fun this way. :T

I do not own HTTYD, the TV series, or the original book series by Cressida Cowell, nor do I own or claim to own the characters.

Eeeenjoy~

* * *

Finally back from Outcast Island, Hiccup and Toothless sat side by side on one of the rocky pillars that surrounded Berk, gazing out at the open ocean and watching the sun set. "You think Mildew'll be alright, Bud?" Hiccup asked suddenly, glancing over at his dragon. The dragon merely cooed in response, nuzzling him. "I know, I shouldn't worry about him. This was all his fault in the first place. I just can't believe it was all a lie. The Isle of Night..." He got to his feet, frustrated, "I can't believe it. I thought sure Bork would have known something more about Night Furies." He paced as much as the small patch of land allowed, Toothless watching his every move nervously, ready to dive after him if need be. "You must have come from somewhere, right?" He asked, defeated. Toothless lowered his head, looking somewhat ashamed. "I'm not buying the "Unholy offspring of lightning and death itself" garbage. You have a mother and a father, you have to. There must be other Night Furies out there somewhere, right?" In an attempt to stop his frantic pacing, Toothless stuck his head in Hiccup's path and nuzzled him again. Hiccup sighed, gazing down at his dragon, "I know, I know. I won't go out looking for them again, I've learned my lesson. I just wish... I just wish I could find more Night Furies." Toothless met his gaze, appearing rather pained. "What's wrong, Toothless?" Hiccup wondered aloud, and Toothless cooed in response, pawing at the ground anxiously. "Toothless... Sometimes I wish I could understand you, you know." With this, he mounted the dragon, and the two made their way back home.

Hiccup was hoping to make it back to the safety of his room before anyone caught him, as he was rather embarrassed by the fact that he'd fallen for, well, everything, but of course, Astrid spotted him and called out to him. "Hiccup!" He cringed, but turned to face her nonetheless.

"Hey, Astrid." He greeted as the girl approached him. "Some day, huh? I was just about to get to bed-"

Astrid narrowed her eyes, "No you weren't. The sun just went down, there's no way you're tired yet."

"Well, I kinda pulled an all nighter and you know, digging through rock with a rock takes a lot out of you." Hiccup fumbled. All of this was true, of course, but he still had quite the adrenaline rush from flying. Toothless shot him a look that clearly asked "how stupid _are_ you?" Hiccup noticed this and snapped, "What? How else was I going to get to you?"

Dismissing Hiccup's idiocy with a roll of her eyes, Astrid folded her arms over her chest, "Did you really think you'd get off that easily? You scared us half to death, you know."

It was then that Hiccup noticed his peers slowly but surely gathering around him, like a pack of wolves. "Speak for yourself, I wasn't worried. He'd be doing us all a favor if he- oof!" Snotlout was silenced by a swift punch to the stomach from Astrid.

"You're lucky I found your notebook." Astrid reminded, smoothly covering her violence.

Hiccup rolled his eyes, "Yeah, yeah, I know, I won't do it again. I already promised Toothless, didn't I Bud?" He glanced over at the dragon for support, but Toothless seemed rather distracted, looking off into the distance. "Toothless?" Toothless didn't seem to hear him, and Hiccup sighed, giving up as he turned back to the group. Grabbing his arm out of nervous habit, he admitted, "I know I messed up. It's just... I really wanted to believe there were other Night Furies out there somewhere. If anyone knew, it would have been Bork, but now... Now we can't trust a thing that's written in his notes."

"What? Is Toothless not good enough for you because of his tail?" Snotlout teased, going a little too far.

Glaring at his cousin, the boy replied, "You really want to go there, Snotlout? At least Toothless likes me, unlike you and Hookfang."

"Me and Hookfang get along great, I don't know what you're talking about! And look at Toothless, he's not even listening to a word you're saying." Snotlout retorted, earning another punch from Astrid.

Hiccup glanced over at his dragon a bit sadly, but Astrid soon stepped between the two. "Of course Toothless loves you, and he's happy the way things are. Why can't you just leave it at that?"

"Astrid's right. We're his pack now, and he seems just fine with that." Fishlegs offered.

"If only I could ask him that myself." Hiccup muttered under his breath, lowering his gaze. His energy was fading fast, and now that he actually appeared to be tired, Astrid decided to lay off him.

"If you could, he'd tell you you're being stupid." She said with a small smile, "Get some sleep, Hiccup. Come morning, this whole thing will be forgotten."

"Forgotten? What about Mildew?" Hiccup wondered, meeting her gaze.

Tuffnut rolled his eyes, "Yeah, what about him? Without him here trying to get rid of the dragons, what ever will we do?" Naturally, this started a wrestling match between him and his sister which was disregarded by the rest of the group.

"You did your best to save him, even after all he's done against you and the dragons. You can't blame yourself for not being able to save him. After all, it's his own fault, right?" Astrid assured him gently, lightly resting a hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Hiccup muttered, "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Sleep well." Astrid murmured.

"See ya tomorrow Hiccup!" Fishlegs said a little too loudly when Hiccup turned to leave.

But Hiccup noticed, after taking a few steps, that the familiar sound of heavy paws was not following him. He turned back to see the dragon right where he had left him. "Toothless?" He moved closer, "Toothless!" The dragon finally wheeled around to face Hiccup when the boy bumped into his tail. "What's gotten into you, buddy?" He asked, concerned. A purring Toothless nudged him away from the crowd, seeming to have snapped out of his stupor. "Don't scare me like that." Hiccup chided, though he wasn't particularly angry, more concerned. Was Toothless upset about something he'd said? He wanted to ask, but felt it would be rather pointless. It wasn't like he could ever truly have a conversation with Toothless. The thought was actually quite depressing. Here he was with his best friend, and he couldn't even properly communicate with him.

"Well, tomorrow's another day." Hiccup mumbled as he slid into bed, "Let's just hope Astrid was right and we can put this mess behind us." Toothless grunted in agreement before heating up his rock slab and curling up for a good night's sleep.

Come morning, everything seemed to be back to normal with Toothless. He was jumping on the roof to wake Hiccup, just like any other morning. Groaning, the boy sat up, "Ugh, alright, alright, I'm up Toothless!" He called, sitting up in bed and rubbing his eyes. He groggily rolled out of bed and pulled his vest on before going outside. The cold winds of Berk woke him right up, and, blinking, he looked to Toothless, who was standing before him expectantly. The innocent expression on his dragon's face melted away any anger he might have had about the rude awakening, replacing his disgruntled frown with a lopsided grin. "You really love your morning flights, don't ya bud?" He reached out to scratch Toothless behind his earplates, earning a purr and nuzzle from the Night Fury.

He climbed aboard Toothless and the two were soon airborne, doing their usual inspection of the island, searching for any incoming ships and yelling at the twins for whatever stupidity they were getting themselves into. Today they were using a Terrible Terror to chase chickens out of their coops. While it was technically his father, the chief's, responsibilities, Hiccup took it upon himself to help out where he could. After all, if he was supposed to be chief one day, he'd have to learn how to patrol the island. Besides, it wasn't like the twins listened to him anyway, so his father would still have plenty to do.

Hiccup leaned back slightly, allowing the still-rising sun to warm his chest and the crisp cold air to muss his hair. "Good day for flying," He commented. The skies were clear and there wasn't much turbulence- an uncommon thing for Berk. After a few moments, he realized that they'd been facing the sun for too long. Glancing back, he saw Berk slowly receding behind them, and before them? Well, not much but open ocean and the sun. Leaning forward, he said, "We better head back, bud. It's just about time for breakfast."

Toothless turned to look over his shoulder at Hiccup, then gave him a devilish grin, and continued flying East, though he did turn North a bit. Hiccup blinked, "Toothless, come on, let's go home!" The last time Toothless had done anything like this, he'd shown him the Red Death. What was he doing now? He didn't seem quite as distracted as he had before, and the dragons had stopped attacking Berk. But he was smiling, like it was a game. "This isn't funny, Toothless, take us home or you'll get eels for a week!" Toothless shuddered at this, but continued nonetheless. Of course, Hiccup could just force Toothless' tail to malfunction, but then they'd both end up cold and wet and have to fly back cold and wet. "Great, I'm being kidnapped by a dragon. This is the last time I take you for a morning flight." The dragon whimpered and looked back at Hiccup apologetically, but made no signs of turning around.

After flying over the open ocean for what felt like days, Hiccup finally spotted an island in the distance. It wasn't a particularly large island, he guess about only half the size of Berk, but it was something. More than that, it was an island he'd heard nothing about, not even from trader Johan. As the island got closer, they began to lose altitude. Hiccup was grateful for this, as he was looking forward to stretching his leg and having the chance to pee, as they'd been flying for at least eight hours, judging by the position of the sun. They came to land on the beach of said island and Toothless allowed Hiccup to get off and walk around a bit.

When he returned from a cluster of bushes, Hiccup stretched his arms above his head and asked, "So what now? You kidnap me, take me to a secret island... Agh, I'm hungry. Next time you come up with a hare brained scheme like this, warn me so I can pack some food. Or just not come along at all." Toothless whimpered and nosed Hiccup, who turned away angrily, saying nothing. With a bit of a sigh, the dragon curled around the boy, who he was just now realizing was not as warm as he should have been. Hiccup sneezed and fell back against Toothless. Angry as he was, the body heat and steady breathing of the dragon was undeniably soothing, and it wasn't long before he found himself drifting off to sleep.

When he woke, the sun had already set, but his ears and nose were still stinging from the long flight, and his eyes were crusted over from watering in the wind. Tipping his chin up to look at the stars, Hiccup was surprised to see light showering down from the night sky. "Look at that, bud, a meteor shower." He commented, nudging the dragon, who was positively exhausted from the flight. The great beast raised his head and looked to the sky, yawning. "You know, they say that if you wish upon a shooting star, your wish comes true." Toothless rolled his eyes at this, but Hiccup protested, "Hey, I used to do it when I was little! I used to wish that I could be something more than a Hiccup, something my father could be proud of and say, "That's my son." I'd say it worked, wouldn't you?" The dragon seemed unconvinced. "If you knew how things were back then, Toothless, you'd know I needed a miracle. Funny that the miracle came from the same sky I gave that wish to... And now look where it got me. Kidnapped by a dragon and stranded in the middle of nowhere." Toothless purred apologetically, nuzzling Hiccup's shoulder. "Gah, I just wish... I wish I could understand you, Toothless." Again, the dragon cooed, then looked to the sky. Silence fell between them, both watching the rain of lights, until Hiccup shivered. Realizing the human was probably cold, Toothless made a fire out of a nearby log of driftwood. "Thanks, Toothless." Hiccup mumbled, though there was a slight edge in his voice, as he was still pretty miffed about this whole ordeal. Again, silence fell between them, and the meteor shower slowly came to an end.

Hiccup sighed and turned to the fire, not noticing Toothless' head whipping around behind him. That is, until there was a familiar sonic whine from somewhere behind them. Assuming it was Toothless, Hiccup ignored it, until Toothless pounced him to the ground and crouched protectively over the boy. Hiccup glanced up just in time to see a purple ball of plasma blast over Toothless' head. His eyes widened in shock, "No way... Night Furies?" Toothless, still crouched protectively over Hiccup, turned around and glared into the darkness. Hiccup rolled onto his stomach and sat up slightly to get a better look at their attacker.

A cold, detached voice called out softly, "Son?" Hiccup blinked, wondering if he was being addressed, but before he had the chance to speak, a much closer voice answered that question for him.

"Hah! You still call me that?" It was... Toothless? Toothless was talking? He had so many questions, so much to say... But perhaps now wasn't the best time. Toothless was in complete defense mode, crouched over Hiccup with a vicious glare and teeth bared.

"I warned you never to come back." The voice stated coolly as a shadowy mass emerged from the bushes. It was hard to see much in the dark, but Hiccup could only assume that this was the Night Fury that had attacked them moments ago. The general shape was right, but he was about twice the size of Toothless! He couldn't help but gasp in amazement. That was a mistake.

"A human?!" The beast growled, lunging forward. Toothless was quick to jump between them.

"It's not what you think," He said, sounding a bit hopeless.

Hiccup could practically see the rage burning in the elder Night Fury's eyes, "You've become a human's pet? I was right to banish you!"

Before Toothless could respond, Hiccup said, voice cracking, "Toothless is _not_ my pet." He finally got to his feet, much to Toothless' dismay. "He's my friend. My best friend."

The Night Fury seemed even angrier at this, "Did that man-child just address me?! The nerve! Does he not know who I am?"

"Well of course not, he's a human." Toothless rolled his eyes a bit. Apparently the fact that Hiccup was eavesdropping had yet to fully set in.

Clearing his throat, Hiccup continued, "He's free to leave any time he likes."

Toothless' gaze fell, "Now that's not exactly true. I can't get very far without a rider." He unconsciously drew his tail closer to his body, which allowed the elder Night Fury to see his false fin.

"...Right, but I gave you the option. You broke the automatic tail fin." Hiccup reminded with a sigh, looking down at the prosthetic. "You chose that one."

Now that Hiccup was addressing him, Toothless began to realize, "You can hear me?"

"Yeah, I don't know what happened, but-"

"Flamewing, did you take care of the intruder?" A female voice called softly.

"It's your son," The elder dragon growled as another dragon stepped forth. She was a bit paler than Toothless and Flamewing, so she was a bit easier for Hiccup to see in the dark. Much smaller than Flamewing, but still at least a head taller than Toothless, the dragoness eyed the pair suspiciously. "Your son and his human master."

Hiccup rubbed his temples, "I'm not his master," He corrected, a hint of agitation edging into his voice.

"Your tail!" The female shrieked at the sight of her son's tail, "What on Earth..."

Hiccup made it for me," Toothless said proudly, flashing the tail before his mother.

"What happened to your natural tail?"

Toothless refused to meet her eyes, "It... It came off during a raid, no thanks to you."

Hiccup wanted to ask what Toothless had meant by this, but was interrupted by the dragoness who growled, "You got what you deserve! You don't deserve the right to call yourself a Night Fury, you miserable excuse for a dragon!"

That was going too far. "Hey, hey, take it easy!" Hiccup held his hands out in a 'calm down' gesture, "Toothless is a fine dragon. Without him, we'd still be at war."

The elder dragon snorted, "War? We've no interest in you filthy humans."

Furrowing his brow, Hiccup asked, "But, the Red Death? Wasn't she your queen or something?"

Flamewing let out a booming laugh, "The Red Death, queen of Night Furies? Please! Dragons proud as ourselves have no use for a "Queen" who can't even fetch her own food."

"But she killed so many other dragons just because they didn't bring her enough!" Toothless protested.

"But never a Night Fury! We never fell victim to her siren songs, we had no reason to do her bidding! You sound the same as always, Pixie." The elder dragon growled, glaring at his son.

Hiccup flinched at the name, "Pixie?"

"My name is Toothless." Toothless countered with pride, "And you needn't worry about me assisting my fellow dragons to feed the queen any longer. The Red Death is dead."

The dragoness seemed shocked at this, "But that's impossible!"

"Far from it. Hiccup took her out," Toothless nudged the boy, glancing up at him with a somewhat sad expression.

"Don't sell yourself short, I couldn't have done anything without you, Toothless." Hiccup said pointedly, "And even with your help, I'd be dead if you hadn't caught me." He gestured to his prosthetic leg. "We're a team."

"Are we?" Toothless wondered under his breath, but before Hiccup could respond, more dragons leapt out of the underbrush. Most of them were the same size as Toothless' mother, but of all different shades of gray, ranging from the familiar pitch-black of Toothless' scales to white as snow, and even a few deep shades of blue, purple, and green were seen glistening in the moonlight.

"Pixie?" A male voice scoffed, "You should be dead." A male with deep sapphire scales stepped forward and glared at Toothless. "I thought Moonsilver took your left tailfin." He shot a glare at the dragoness who was presumably Toothless' mother.

"She tried," Toothless confessed, "But I managed to save it. It was barely hanging on by a thread when I got shot down by a bola, and it tore off during the fall... But Hiccup made me a new fin, so I could fly again." Again, he flaunted the prosthetic.

Hiccup was taken aback by this. So... it wasn't all his fault? Toothless was already wounded that night? He opened his mouth to speak, but rather than words, a sneeze escaped him. He must have caught cold from two days of long flights and physical, mental, and emotional struggles. Just what he needed on an island full of furious Night Furies.

Toothless winced, "I'm sorry, Hiccup, this is my fault," He mumbled, nuzzling the boy, who sneezed again, this time shivering a bit.

"What is it doing?" One of the Night Furies asked, the entire crowd tensing at the strange actions of the human.

"He's sneezing, he must have gotten sick from all the work he's been doing without enough rest. It's my fault, I should have been more persistent before, and I shouldn't have brought him here. I knew it was a mistake, but he was just so upset about the fake island and the Outcasts-" His father cut him off suddenly, stiffening.

"Outcasts? Are you speaking of Alvin the Treacherous?"

Hiccup's eyes went wide as saucers, "Alvin? How do you... know..." Suddenly, he collapsed onto Toothless, who nuzzled him worriedly.

"He's too warm, he must have fainted." With pleading eyes, he looked to his parents, "I know you don't want either of us here, but please, at least hear us out. Hiccup is... He's a friend. Not just to me, but all dragons, and he wants to be friends with you, too."

The sapphire dragon snorted, "With a human? It's understandable for Terrible Terrors to be lap dragons to humans, but Night Furies?"

"It's not like that at all!" Toothless protested, "Please, I can't risk moving him while he's sick like this."

Flamewing snorted, eyes blazing with fury, "We are Night Furies. We don't attack defenseless prey. Out of respect for his illness, we will tolerate him for the time being, on the grounds that both of you leave this island and never return- or speak of it- the moment he's well enough to fly, and if either of you make any suspicious movements, we will dispatch of you immediately. Am I clear?"

Toothless ducked his head, "Yes, sir."

* * *

A few notes- I don't know if people wished upon stars then, but I'm saying they did. I'm also not claiming that the stars alone are magical. It's a combination of things. For one, Hiccup and Toothless both wished for (more or less) the same thing at the same time, and for another, they're on the magical and mysterious Isle of Night.

Another thing. Pixie. Yes, really. Because I can and this is fanfiction, I'm going to say that, for the sake of this fic, Toothless is the runt of the Night Furies, and the name "Pixie" is a lot like "Hiccup," saying he's small, insignificant, and useless. It's also (in my mind) rather feminine, so just another kick in the teeth. The names of the Night Furies will be weird, but I mean... Come on. Fishlegs? Snotlout? I think I'm allowed to get creative when names like those are canon.

Toothless will clarify what exactly happened (according to me) with his tailfin and why his parents are... well... acting the way they are, in addition to why he didn't bring him here in the first place. All in due time. For now, I'm sure you're all wondering what Stoick and Astrid think of Hiccup's disappearance. We'll find out in the next chapter~ if there is a next chapter. I appreciate reviews and tend to prioritize stories that people review on. It shows you care and sometimes gives me ideas. SO! Use that box at the bottom of the screen to make me smile! Or cry. Either way, make it do something.


	2. Rescue Mission Gone Haywire

Oh~ I feel like a kid on Snoggletog! People reviewed! I'm thrilled! Thank you all for the supportive reviews~

BlueStar29- I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for it! I also love Toothless Family stories. Actually, reading Deception and Illusion by Sandfire Kat was what got me inspired to write this. I can't say enough about how much I love those fics.

AlexjohnD- Yes, Pixie. I know, it's really quite shocking to me that nobody seems to have thought of that before. (If you have, let me know so I can correct this and read it.)

Sairey13- Yes, I do remember that, and good idea! I actually considered calling him "Hiccup" but then it'd just get too confusing. Dragons would be talking to Toothless and Hiccup would think they meant him... It'd be weird and not fun. Also, about that accepting Hiccup and Toothless bit- might come sooner than you think. ;3

Everyone else who reviewed, again, thank you and I will continue! I didn't want to overdo the responding to reviews here thing, so I only responded to the ones that really stuck out as needing to be responded to. Hope I didn't offend anybody. I still love you! :D

* * *

Meanwhile, on Berk...

Stoick, Gobber, Spitelout, and the teens sat together in the Great Hall. It was the middle of the night, and everyone should have been in bed, but something was bothering them. Namely Hiccup and his disappearance. "I just don't get it. Where could he possibly have gone?" Stoick wondered aloud for what felt like the millionth time that day. The group and their dragons had spent the whole day scouring the island for any traces of Hiccup and Toothless to no avail, and frankly, it showed. Their once-proud faces sagged under the combined weight of exhaustion and defeat, and everyone but Astrid was sitting (or, in Snotlout's case, lying) down on benches, using as little energy as possible and doing their best to keep their eyes open.

Astrid, trying to keep everything together, paced around the room, "Let's focus on what we know. Toothless woke Hiccup up for his usual morning flight, right?"

"Aye, and then they were both gone." Stoick mumbled under his breath.

"They did fly around the island like always," Ruffnut said, drawing everyone's attention.

"Yeah, he was yelling at us this morning by the chicken coop." Tuffnut agreed.

Gobber glared at them, "Tha'- tha' was you?! I spent all mornin' trackin' down those chickens 'n their eggs!" The twins smirked and high fived one another.

In an attempt to restore order, Astrid continued, "And Toothless is gone too, so they're probably together, wherever they are, which is good. Toothless will look after him."

"Unless they get separated, or Toothless loses his tailfin." Snotlout said pointedly, "Wouldn't they be back by now if something hadn't gone horribly wrong?"

Stoick shot Snotlout a glare, and Astrid punched him in the stomach. "But where could he have gone?" Fishlegs wondered worriedly.

Astrid heaved a sigh, trying to clear her head, "Well let's think back... Usually there's always some clue he accidentally leaves us. What was the last thing Hiccup was talking about?"

"The role of Terrible Terrors is not to torment chickens." Ruffnut recited.

Her twin looked at him, shocked, "You were listening? All I heard was blah blah blah."

"Yeah, I was listening. Doesn't mean I cared what he said." Ruffnut said with a chuckle and a shrug.

Astrid smacked her hand to her forehead, rubbing her temples. Who had invited them to this meeting, anyway? "Before that!"

Fishlegs, raising his hand as if in class, recalled, "I remember! We were talking about Mildew last night." That was when the horror set in.

The girl looked to Stoick pleadingly, "He wouldn't... Would he?"

Stoick returned the look with a similar one for a fraction of a second before his emotionless "chief" face returned once more. "He's always been the sort to get into as much trouble as possible." Gobber nodded grimly in agreement as Stoick continued, "It's the only thing that makes sense. He must have gone back for Mildew."

"Why would he go back for that stubborn old man? It's his own fault he got captured!" Gobber complained, feeling somewhat responsible for this. Perhaps if he'd landed that Nadder to pull Mildew back onto the saddle...

"He did say Mildew saved his life," Astrid pointed out, "You know how he gets when he feels indebted to or responsible for someone. Just look at how many times he's saved Snotlout."

"Not that I needed saving!" Snotlout protested, looking away.

Stoick removed his helmet to rub his head, slowly drawing his meaty palm down his face and beard. All eyes were on him, and an expectant silence filled the room as they waited for the chief to speak. "We leave at dawn, for Outcast Island." He commanded, getting to his feet, "Get some rest, all of you." With this, the crowd dispersed, bowing their heads respectfully.

As the group approached Outcast Island the next morning, Stoick commanded, "Everyone, split up and try to be as flat against your dragons as you can. That way they'll think our dragons are wild. We'll meet up in the lava field where we found Toothless last time." The group nodded in agreement and split up, fanning out around the island, Stoick closed his eyes for a moment and prayed to the Gods that everyone would make it back to Berk safely.

Astrid and Stormfly were the first to land. Surveying the area, Astrid noticed that the island as a whole seemed rather... lifeless. She had hardly even seen any wild dragons hanging around. But the ships were still at port, so the Outcasts had to be around here somewhere. "Stormfly," She whispered to get the dragon's attention, "Do you see that?" She was pointing to a hole in the wall that looked rather foreboding, labelled simply, "Dragons." "I'll bet that's where they're keeping Toothless. Let's go get him, girl!" The dragon trilled proudly and carried her rider to the gates, where she had to get off in order to open them.

The pair made their way deeper into the cavern, eyes scanning empty cages in hopes of spotting Toothless. "Toothless!" She called out softly, but there was no response. "That's weird. Maybe he already escaped like last time," Astrid suggested, turning to leave when suddenly, the entrance to the cave slammed shut. "Stormfly!" She called hurriedly, but it was too late. She was pinned to the ground by one outcast while another threw a weighted net over Stormfly and tied her down. It was then that Mildew stepped forward.

"Mildew!" She hissed, "You won't get away with this!"

"But I already 'ave." The old man chuckled, "Here we were coming to see if there were any dragons left to carry 'Iccup's bola shooter, and there you are! Alvin will be quite impressed, indeed." Fungus brayed in agreement.

Astrid's eyes narrowed, "Where are Hiccup and Toothless?"

Mildew seemed caught off-guard by the question. "'Iccup? I 'avent't seen 'im since he tried to save me yesterday. But if he's here, we'd be happy to bring 'im along as well." Flashing the girl a smile, the man turned away, "I think I saw a Monstrous Nightmare near the entrance, we can use that. I don't trust that Nadder."

Astrid struggled against the man pinning her down, "What have you done with the dragons?"

Mildew smirked, "Done with them? Why, we trained them, of course. Dragon training begins and ends with trust, innt that right?" Laughing, the man walked away from her... To do what, Astrid couldn't be certain, but it couldn't be good.

* * *

Back on the Isle of Night...

Hiccup awoke from what was surely a dream with a start. Talking dragons? Night Furies other than Toothless? What a crazy dream. Unfortunately, when he opened his eyes, he found himself rather... well, blind. This was not the kind of darkness he was used to, the dark of night, or an unlit room, no this was a pure black. The ground was hard, much harder than his bed at home, and he could feel the steady rising and falling of a chest against his back. "Toothless?" He murmured hopefully. The breathing hitched and he felt a big head rub against his cheek. "Hey, bud, where are we?"

"On the Isle of Night. The real one. My father agreed to let you stay until you're well enough to fly after you fainted last night. How are you feeling?" Toothless wondered, licking the boy's cheek affectionately, "You're still too hot."

Groaning, Hiccup realized that he had not been in bed, dreaming. "I'm freezing," he complained, "My head hurts, I feel like I got run over by a stampede of yaks, and my limbs feel all limp."

Toothless whimpered, "I'm sorry, Hiccup, this is my fault."

In a sudden fit of rage, Hiccup snapped, "You're right, it _is_ your fault. You let me walk right into what you must have known to be a trap, then kidnapped me and brought me to an island full of dragons that want to kill me!"

Ears pressed flat against his head, Toothless murmured, "I'm sorry, Hiccup, I just..."

"You just _what?_" Hiccup prodded, trying to calm himself. Anger wasn't going to help him get better any faster, and he knew deep down that Toothless would never intentionally do anything to hurt him... Though the evidence was stacked against him, Hiccup was one who believed in second chances, especially when it came to dragons.

"I tried to warn you," Toothless said finally, a bit defensive, "I didn't want to go to that island, and I tried to warn you, but you wouldn't listen! You were so excited about the possibility of meeting other Night Furies... I didn't know it was a trap, but I'd heard that Bork went crazy, and I thought maybe that was some of his insane banter. I thought it'd be a harmless island, or if it weren't, that it would be something we could handle, like dragons or wild beasts, I had no idea Mildew and the Outcasts were involved... I'm sorry, I should have been more persistent, especially when that fake Night Fury came out."

Hiccup exhaled deeply. Whatever miracle had allowed him the ability to speak with Toothless, he was grateful for it. He might never have forgiven his friend otherwise. Thinking back, Toothless had seemed pretty against going to that island at first. Pushing away the reading materials and trying to get Hiccup to just go to sleep. At the time, he'd thought the dragon was simply tired, but now it was all starting to make sense. Even the hesitation when he went to meet the fake Night Fury. "You knew it was a fake?"

"I had my suspicions," Toothless admitted, curling his tail around the two of them, "But the calls were realistic, and I thought it was possible that there was another rouge Night Fury like myself, and that might be enough to appease you."

Blinking at this, the boy wondered, "Appease me? What are you talking about, Toothless?"

The dragon hesitated, "I never wanted to bring you here. I never wanted to come back here-" He stiffened and curled tighter around Hiccup at the sound of heavy paws approaching them.

"Toothless? What's happening?" Hiccup wondered. Though he couldn't see, he could feel the dragon tense around him. Finally he, too, was able to hear the footsteps.

"Pixie." Flamewing spat as he approached the pair. It sickened him to see his son, a proud Night Fury, curled up around a human master like a guard dog.

"Father." The dragon acknowledged, ducking his head slightly.

This dragon, Hiccup had questions for. "How do you know about Alvin and the Outcasts?" He asked, sitting up.

Flamewing glared at the insolent human boy, "That is none of your concern, human."

With a dejected sigh, Hiccup gave up. It was obvious he wasn't going to get much out of this dragon until he earned their trust- if he was able to, that is. Closing his eyes, he fell back against Toothless. "You think your dad and mine would get along?" He mumbled, seeing a resemblance between the two.

"They're both too proud." Toothless grumbled, not looking at his father, who he knew could hear them, "My father is the alpha male, much like yours is chief. That's why he's offended that you're talking to him."

"Sounds familiar." Hiccup glanced in the elder dragon's general direction and asked, "So my friendship with Toothless bothers you?"

The dragon snorted, "Friendship... Night Furies do not belong with humans. It's one thing to have a Terrible Terror, or even a Nadder as a pet, but Night Furies? We're above that! Although I suppose you never were, Pixie."

Toothless looked to the ground guiltily, "I see you haven't changed, Father." He said dryly.

Hiccup's eyes narrowed. He didn't much appreciate the way this dragon was treating Toothless, and the fact that it reminded him of his own home situation before he met Toothless only made him angrier, "Could _Pixie_ have defeated the Red Death?" This got the attention of both of the dragons. "If you don't believe me, go see for yourself. We lured her out of her mountain, took the fight to the sky, and blew her up from the inside out just as she was getting ready to give her final blow. The gasses she'd built up ignited her insides, and the one who fired the devastating blow? _Pixie._ You might not care about your fellow dragons, or humans, but I'm willing to bet that you can't say _you've_ ever done anything so great."

Both of the dragons were stunned to silence. Was the insolent human boy mocking the alpha Night Fury? "Are you mocking me, boy?" The elder dragon snapped, puffing out his chest self-importantly.

"Insults and yelling are the only things people- and dragons- like you ever listen to." Hiccup replied from experience, "I have no respect for anyone who banishes his own son, be they human, dragon, or Night Fury. What kind of father would banish his own son? Especially one like Toothless!"

"You don't know what he was like, what a disgrace he is!" The dragon snapped, edging closer. Toothless fidgeted uncomfortably, but Hiccup stood- or sat- his ground.

"So tell me! Tell me what he could have possibly done so wrong that you'd leave him for dead!" The boy challenged. In retrospect, it would be a rather hilarious thought. A 90-pound boy arguing with a Night Fury of high status that was the size of a small Nadder.

The dragon looked from Hiccup to Toothless before turning his back on the pair, "The deal was, as soon as you're well enough to fly, you're leaving this island and never speaking of it again. Try anything funny and you'll be dead before you can blink."

"I don't want to fight you," Hiccup mumbled at the retreating form, "I want to understand you."

Toothless nosed Hiccup gently, "You shouldn't have done that. You're not going to gain any ground by insulting him."

Hiccup eased himself back against his dragon and heaved a sigh, "It's the only way to get through thick heads like his. He's just like my dad was before... He still is, to some degree, but at least he listens some of the time now. I don't get it, Toothless, why do they treat you like that?"

"I'm the runt." Toothless mumbled, "Night Furies are so rare because they can only successfully mate once in their lives, generally laying five eggs. I came from what should have been a litter of three, but I was the only one to make it out of my egg. On some level, my parents blame me for the deaths of my siblings, and for not being three times the dragon I am... I mean, look at my father, he's huge, and my mother beautiful, you would think that there would be some miraculous amazing dragon born from them, but instead they got me."

"Toothless..." Hiccup felt a pang in his chest, remembering every time he'd done the dragon wrong and feeling absolutely horrible for it. How much must it have hurt him to be called a useless reptile? "But there's no way you could possibly have... I mean, you weren't even born yet!"

Toothless averted his gaze, "It doesn't matter. I'm the only son of the alphas, I'm supposed to be more than... Than a Pixie."

"You _are_ more than that. So much more, Toothless, I mean, just look at how much you've done!"

"I couldn't have done anything without you!" Toothless reminded, "And not just because of my tail."

"You think I'm any different?" Hiccup asked pointedly. He watched a shadow that he could only assume was Toothless' tail swish in the darkness. "You know, there's something I've wanted to know for a long time now... Why didn't you kill me back then?"

The dragon tilted his head a bit, curiously, "I could ask you the same."

That was fair enough, Hiccup supposed. "When I looked at you..."

"I saw myself." Toothless finished for him, smiling a bit sadly. "Scared, confused, lonely, just looking for a way to prove your worth."

"I guess that was even more true than I realized." Hiccup murmured, reaching up to gently place a hand on Toothless' snout. How he managed to find it in the darkness, he couldn't be certain, but it didn't matter, because suddenly, there was noise from above, the pounding of paws against the earth, and Flamewing's booming voice.

"Fan out! They may have learned to tame dragons, but I'll be damned if I let them take one of us alive!" Hiccup froze. Tame dragons? It could be his father and the others looking for him.

"Toothless, we have to get out there," He commanded, getting to his feet. Toothless helped the boy onto his back before darting out of the cave, but nothing could have prepared either of them for what they were about to see.

* * *

There are so many things I want Hiccup and Toothless to say but the timing's all wrong! With all the action going on, hopefully I'll be able to get it all in! Please review~ I'll love you forever for it!

Any guesses on why Outcast Island is mostly deserted? Where Mildew is going with Astrid and Hiccup's bola launcher? Who's arrived at the Isle of Night and what all the Night Furies are so upset about?

You're going to come to learn... I don't like Astrid very much. Just... Get used to that fact, because there will be bashing.


	3. Trust Me, I'm Not Like Them

People reviewed some more! I'm glad people seem to be enjoying the parallels I'm drawing. I plan on doing a few full-circles as well. Play I-Spy in this chapter, 'cause there's one there! :p

* * *

Meanwhile on Outcast Island...

The group of vikings had gathered in the lave field as planned... well, most of them. "Where is Astrid?" Stoick wondered, voicing everyone's silent concern. They'd been waiting for a full ten minutes now with no sight of the girl... Not a good thing when in such dangerous waters.

"Well 's not just Astrid that's missing, Stoick." Gobber pointed out, "We 'aven't seen a single outcast since we got here. Don't you find that a bit strange?"

"There are less wild dragons than last time, too." Snotlout observed, shocking everyone. Snotlout was not generally the observant type. "What? Why are you all so surprised? I notice things!"

Spotting an approaching Nadder, Stoick heaved a sigh of relief. It was Stormfly. "Ah, there ye are, Astrid. We were startin' to think-" He silenced himself when the dragon met his gaze, her eyes wide with fear. Finally, she turned to the side so that her empty saddle was visible. "Astrid! Where is she, Stormfly?" The dragoness hung her head in defeat, indicating that she had no idea where Astrid could possibly be.

"No fair! Why do Hiccup and Astrid get all the fun? I want to get kidnapped!" Tuffnut whined, looking to his sister who nodded in agreement.

"Um, hello, nobody would come looking for _you_." Snotlout pointed out, folding his arms over his chest and rolling his eyes. This was a mistake, because he was nearly thrown off Hookfang, who raised her head suddenly and looked to the sky. "Hookfang, why do you hate me so- Hookfang?" He- as well as the rest of the Vikings- now noticed that Hookfang was not the only dragon acting strangely. In fact, all of them were looking to the sky, and, moments later, they were airborne. Luckily, Spitelout, who had been sitting behind Snotlout, had the foresight to grab his son before the boy toppled off of the dragon altogether. After righting himself in his saddle and grabbing hold of Hookfang, Snotlout wondered, "Umm, where are we going?"

Gobber rolled his eyes, " 'aven't ya learned anythin' from your dragon trainin' classes, Snotlout? Obviously the dragons know somethin' we don', so we jus' 'ave to trust 'em."

"That's right." Stoick, who had, until Gobber said this, been trying to figure out a way to get back to Outcast Island, calmed himself and looked forward, "Tha's what Hiccup would want us to do." For once, not even the twins argued with this, or pointed out that Hiccup wasn't around. After all, if not for Hiccup's trust in Dragons knowing what they were doing, none of them would be on the backs of dragons right now. They'd still be fighting for their lives to defend Berk, and Hiccup? Well, he'd likely be an Outcast himself. And so, the vikings followed their dragons to- well, wherever they were being taken.

* * *

Let's check in with our Dynamic Duo...

After much struggling, Hiccup managed to find a way to keep himself on Toothless' back. He felt so weak he had trouble hanging on, and found himself shouting for Toothless to slow down more often than he would have liked, but eventually, they made it out into the light of day once more. They were standing in a clearing, the sun shining brightly directly above their heads. In any other situation, Hiccup would have taken this time to admire his surroundings. The land was not much unlike Berk, but the way the sun shone and glistened off the shores was something rather new to him. But there was no time for that now. The beatings of wings and paws on the earth drew his attention to the center of said clearing, where there was an apparent struggle. A light gray Night Fury was wrapped up in a net, surrounded by... Outcasts?

"Alvin," Hiccup breathed, shaking slightly. This was about the worst thing that could possibly happen to him at this point in time.

"Mother!" Toothless whimpered, racing forward without a thought, accidentally throwing Hiccup off his back in the process.

Hiccup winced as he hit the ground hard, watching Toothless run toward what was apparently his mother. "Toothless-" It was too late. Another net dropped from the sky. Hiccup raised his eyes to see a Nadder with an Outcast perched upon its back chirping proudly as she admired her handiwork. "Toothless!" Forcing himself to his shaky feet, the boy did his best to make a run for his dragon, but found himself being lifted into the air instead. Glancing up, he saw that he was in the paws of a huge Night Fury, whom he could only assume was Flamewing. "Flamewing, please, I know you don't trust me, but Toothless-"

"You and Pixie are one in the same! Keep out of my way!" The dragon growled, preparing to drop Hiccup up high in a tree when suddenly the boy noticed something. A Monstrous Nightmare. For once in his life, he found himself praying to the Gods that Snotlout had come to save him, but then he saw something else. The bola launcher he'd used to catch Toothless in his claws, and, on the back of the dragon, Mildew, and behind him, two Outcasts holding down an infuriated Astrid. The poor Nightmare was floundering under all the extra weight, and nearly crashed into the ground when he finally managed to land.

"Astrid!" He yelped as he fell onto the tree. Clinging to it, he looked back to Flamewing helplessly, "Flamewing, _please!_ That's your mate down there, isn't it?" The dragon hesitated. "That girl they're holding captive on the Monstrous Nightmare is _my_ mate. I know you don't trust me, and I know you don't like me, but we have to work together!"

"And why is that?" The dragon hissed, glaring at the boy. Apparently he wasn't too against the idea, for he was still listening and had yet to simply fly off. "Why should I-" He was cut off when a bola came whizzing out of nowhere and knocked him to the ground.

Hiccup winced as the great dragon fell, and Alvin proudly rested his boot against the Night Fury's paw. "Perfect," He cooed, glaring down at the beast, who was positively fuming. He glanced over his shoulder, and Hiccup, following his gaze, spotted Astrid in handcuffs, being dragged along by an Outcast, and the bola launcher by another. Mildew led them to Alvin. "Well, if it isn't 'lil 'eather." He chuckled, "You're just full of surprises, ain't you, Mildew?"

"Anything to please you," Mildew brown nosed, flashing a toothy grin.

Hiccup sighed, frustrated. He had to do something, and fast. His eyes darted around the scene before him. Toothless was too far away, he'd be caught before he stood a chance of getting to him, and Astrid, too well guarded. Toothless' mother was even further away, but it seemed like the other Night Furies were doing a fairly decent job of keeping the Outcasts from getting too close. Fortunately for him, Alvin decided to test out his new toy. "Le's see how many Night Furies we can get with 'Iccup's bola launcher." He grinned and launched a bola, that, sure enough, hit its target. Hiccup winced as he heard an anguished cry as a Night Fury went down.

Gulping, he looked to Flamewing, who had been watching Hiccup the whole time. "You have to trust me," He whispered, holding both of his hands up, "I'm on your side." The great dragon said nothing, but lowered his head in defeat. Taking this as a yes, Hiccup did his best to climb down the tree as discreetly as he could, but with legs that felt like fish guts, he didn't get very far before ungracefully falling to the ground, attracting the attention of, well, everyone.

Toothless, seeing what Hiccup was trying to do, attempted to draw attention to himself, roaring and blasting plasma in Alvin's general direction. He wasn't really able to get a clear shot with the rope restricting his movements, but it was enough, and he managed to his the bola launcher, setting it aflame. All eyes turned to the Night Fury and away from Hiccup. All but Astrid's. The girl had to stop herself from calling out his name when he came crawling out from the underbrush, but he wasn't even looking at her. His eyes were locked on the Night Fury before him. It was positively huge compared to Toothless, but more importantly, it was a NIGHT FURY. They must have come across the real Isle of Night! So this is where Hiccup has been.

Hiccup withdrew a small silver dagger from his coat and the dragon eyed it suspiciously, "I know, I know, I'm not going to hurt you." He assured the dragon, "You have to trust me. We have to work together, just this once, Flamewing." With this said, he began to cut the bola off of the dragon. Once free, the beast leapt to his feet, bringing attention back to him once more. How could they miss a dragon of his size making such a big movement? Hiccup grimaced as Alvin spotted him.

"Ah, 'Iccup! How nice of you to join us!" The Outcast began to come forward, and much to Hiccup's surprise, Flamewing came to his defense, snarling at the Outcast.

Behind the dragon's outstretched wings, Hiccup made his way to the bola launcher and glared down at it. "Just one more time, please..." He whispered. Astrid, who found it safe to approach Hiccup now, held her arms out. He cut her free and said, "I need you to take care of things here. I'm going to go after that dragon."

"But ho-" She followed his gaze to the flaming bola launcher, "Hiccup-" She warned, but he was having none of it. He was already in position, his vest lighting aflame. Astrid sighed and forced the machine to shoot him into the air. It was quite magnificent, a 90-pound boy flying through the air, sparks showering off of him. Almost like a comet. A very suicidal comet that drew everyone's attention. This gave Astrid just enough time to retreat behind the large dragon's wings, "He's going after your friend," She said softly, earning a glare from the great beast. She took a step back, holding both arms up in a calming fashion, "It's okay, I'm on your side. Those Outcasts kidnapped me and took my dragon away." Flamewing eyed her warily, not ready to trust this human girl... But Hiccup, who had just saved him, had claimed her to be his mate, so he would keep her safe, for now.

* * *

Now to the aimlessly flying Vikings...

Finally, the group of Vikings and dragons came to land on an island, where a rather exhausted-looking Monstrous Nightmare seemed to have crash landed. "Where on Odin's Green Earth _are_ we?" Stoick wondered aloud, though he wasn't allowed much time to think before the dragons seemed to catch wind of something and carried their riders into a clearing where chaos was ensuing. There, in the center of the field, was a Night Fury, whom everyone assumed to be Toothless, caught up in a weighted net, but then they noticed another, much darker Night Fury beside it, and the Outcasts that were attempting to come near them, only to be blasted away by plasma blasts from the sky. "Outcasts?! Just what on Earth is going on here?" He turned to watch Stormfly dart off to the side, where another, excessively large, Night Fury stood, and beside him, Astrid.

"Stormfly!" Astrid rushed to her dragon and embraced her, "I thought I'd never see you again!" The dragoness nuzzled her rider and purred softly. Astrid swiftly hoisted herself onto her Stormfly's back and called to Stoick, "Hiccup's here, he went after another dragon. We have to get the Outcasts and their dragons out of here!"

"Their dragons?! Since when do the Outcasts ride dragons?!" Stoick boomed, enraged.

"Ask Mildew," Astrid spat, glaring down at the old man who was still brown nosing Alvin. Apparently, Alving had been too distracted by shouting orders about Toothless to notice the new arrivals. "He's been playing us all along!"

That was when Stoick noticed Toothless. "TOOTHLESS!" He roared, and just like that, their cover was blown. Everyone turned to face Stoick, Gobber, Spitelout and the teens.

"Ah, just in time!" Alvin greeted, entirely too cheerful about this new development, "FIRE!" he commanded, and all at once, dragons of all sorts came forth with mouths open wide, but nothing came out. "Wha- Wha' the 'ell is wrong with 'em?!" Alvin shouted, turning to Mildew for answers.

"Hah! They're all out!" Gobber beamed, "But ours are jus' gettin' started!"

* * *

Meanwhile, our little comet that could...

Hiccup had done his best to calculate his trajectory. Because he obviously weighed more than a bola, he should have landed pretty close to the Night Fury. Close enough to use his Night Fury call. After rolling on the ground to put the fire out, he cupped his hands around his mouth and howled softly, trying to avoid calling ALL of the island's Night Furies. A feeble response came, and Hiccup forced his legs to move in that general direction. He felt as though he might collapse, sweating profusely in spite of the fact that he felt like he was slowly freezing to death. All in all, he was a mess, but he refused to let another dragon suffer because of his stupid invention. Finally, he caught sight of the Night Fury. In truth, he might have thought the dragon to be a pool of water if not for the movement... And the fact that he was three dimensional. The dragon's scales were a deep shade of blue that Hiccup couldn't help but admire... Though he didn't have long to do so, because as soon as yellow eyes met green, the dragon panicked and began thrashing about.

"No, no please! I'm not here to hurt you!" Hiccup promised, though the dragon wasn't buying it. "Please! Thrashing around is only going to hurt you more! That's how Toothless... Pixie... lost his tail fin." The dragon froze and eyed the boy warily. "I'm a friend. The people that shot you down are my enemy, too." He withdrew the knife from his singed vest, which started the dragon's fearful squirming once more, "I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to cut the net off of you."

"Pixie was a fool to trust a human," The dragon spat, "You're no different from all the rest of them!"

Hiccup shook his head and gestured to the forest around him, "Look around you. There's nobody here to back me up. Either I cut you free while you have a chance to escape, or they will while you're held in a cage. Look at me. Do I really look like I could do any damage to a Night Fury?" The dragon eyed him. It was true. The boy could hardly keep his head up, and he was having trouble keeping the knife in his sweaty palms. "If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it already. Please, you have to trust me... We have to trust each other to get these men off your island."

"And what's in it for you?!" The dragon spat angrily.

"Well, for one thing, like I said, they're my enemies, too. If they had an army of Night Furies, I'd be toast." Hiccup admitted with a shrug, edging closer to the dragon, "Promise me you won't run when I free you." There was silence. "Please, promise me. We have to work together, just this once. Let me show you that I'm not like the other humans."

"Drop the dagger... when you've finished, then I'll stay." The dragon said finally, seeing no other options. Hiccup grinned and nodded, cutting through the ropes as fast as he could before throwing the dagger aside and getting to his feet, holding both arms out before himself.

"Alright, I'm unarmed, and you're free, see?" He said soothingly, "You have all the power now. I'm trusting you not to hurt me." The dragon got to his feet and sniffed at the boy warily, trying to understand.

"You're a human... Why would you do something so foolish? I could kill you!" The dragon reared back, opening his mouth threateningly.

Hiccup nodded, "You could." He admitted, "But that's not in your best interest. I know more about the Outcasts than you do. I can help you get rid of them once and for all."

The dragon calmed down a bit, watching Hiccup's every move, "I could kill you without batting an eye, and yet... You're indifferent. You should smell of fear, not hope!"

"I'm not afraid. I trust you to do the right thing, to show me I did the right thing by setting you free. I'm not your enemy." He held his hand out, just as he had with Toothless that day so long ago, "I want to help you."

Not understanding this gesture, the dragon snorted at Hiccup's hand and turned, showing the boy his back, "Don't get used to this, human. Just this once, I'll allow you to... ride me." Hiccup beamed and stepped forward, getting onto the Night Fury's back with difficulty. He was bigger than Hiccup was used to, and he didn't have a saddle like Toothless, which was bad in his current weakened state, but he managed to wrap his arms around the dragon.

"We have to go back to the others. I have a plan to save the alpha female." The dragon nodded curtly and pressed himself to the ground before launching into the air.

* * *

Anybody catch the whole "Toothless hit the bola launcher" full circle there? Next chapter should be pretty action-packed... And I just got another idea that might be a tear jerker. We'll see! Anyway, review my lovelies!


	4. That Purple Feeling

The reviews are slowing down! I want moar! :V I NEED THEM! Going to start doing the replying via private messages thing I used to do. Not really sure why I stopped doing that. Underlined means the dragons are talking. (Humans can't understand)

* * *

It was a struggle to hold on to a Night Fury going full-speed without a saddle. It was nearly impossible to cling to a Night Fury going full speed without a saddle who's not used to having a rider while said rider has the flu. For that, Hiccup should be commended. Trying to elaborate as much as possible in what little time they had to earn the dragon's trust and faith in his plan, he explained, "We can't go for her directly, they'll be expecting that. First we have to figure out where they're getting their bolas and weighted nets and destroy that store. Without the threat of the bolas, the other dragons will be able to get closer, and we can make this a fair fight. One thing we have going for us is shot limits. They don't have Night Furies, we do. Now, as far as I know, Night Furies have no shot limit, and they're the only species of dragon with that-" He paused to cough, partially because a bug went down his throat, but also from the illness, "-the only dragon that can do that."

The Night Fury smirked at this, "You know your dragons, don't you?"

Hiccup grinned, "My first and best friend is a Night Fury. Of course I know dragons." He paused before remembering, "Toothless... They have him, too. I managed to cut Flamewing free before I got away, but Odin knows if they've got him again or not." Hearing the shouts of Outcasts getting closer, he said, "Don't get any closer this low to the ground. Toothless blew up the bola launcher, but they can still throw this high, and they've been using dragons to drop those weighted nets." With a tip of his tail, the boy and dragon soared into the sky, and began their hunt for a pile of bolas.

Below them, the Vikings were waging war against the Outcasts. Dragons were neck-and-neck, taking on three or four to one, and the Vikings weren't faring much better. Thankfully, as Gobber had said, their dragons still had all their shots left, so they at least stood a chance. Not to mention Flamewing had amassed a small army of Night Furies that were fighting alongside the Vikings. Astrid managed to sneak away in the fray to cut Toothless free. "Hey buddy," She greeted as she began to work on the ropes. The dragon met her gaze with eyes brimming with concern. "I know you're worried about Hiccup, I am too, but we have to trust him. If anyone can get us through this, it's him."

"Maybe if he weren't sick. This is all my fault, I should never have come back here." Now free, the dragon sprang to his feet and raced to the edge of the clearing where Hiccup had disappeared.

"Toothless!" Astrid called, assuming the dragon would ignore her, but to her surprise, he actually stopped dead in his tracks. His ears perked up and he looked to the sky. "Toothless?" It was then that she heard-

"NIGHT FURY! GET DOWN!" Spitelout shouted out of habit, and, similarly, the rest of the group, and even the Outcasts, stopped fighting and pressed themselves to the ground. There was a sonic whine followed by an explosion, and a familiar whooping from the sky.

"Alright! Now! Flamewing, they're unarmed!" Said voice from the sky shouted to those below as a beautiful blue Night Fury swooped into the scene.

"Hiccup!" Astrid beamed. Of course he would come save the day, just in time, on the back of a strange dragon. Taking his signal, Flamewing gestured for the other Night Furies to resume their attacks, while he ran to his mate and the fallen dragon beside her to free them. The blue Night Fury landed beside Astrid, and Hiccup more or less fell off of him.

A bit dizzy, Hiccup announced, "They're out of bolas and weighted nets... The only thing left to take care of is their dragons. I'd rather not kill them just because they're on the wrong team. They don't know any better."

Helping the boy to his feet, Astrid asked, "Never mind about that! Are you okay? You set yourself on fire not long ago, you know!"

"Occupational hazard," Hiccup mumbled with a lopsided grin as his father, Gobber, Spitelout, and the other teens approached them.

"Hiccup, you look TERRIBLE. I mean, worse than usual!" Snotlout concluded, looking the boy over.

"Yeah, where'd you get that awesome bruise?" Ruffnut wondered aloud, pointing to a purplish mark on the boy's face that had probably come from falling out of a tree.

"Ah, kay, okay, can we talk about this later, please?" Hiccup asked, gesturing to the mayhem going on all around them, "I need to stop the dragons from killing each other."

Astrid folded her arms over her chest, "What you _need_ is some sleep."_  
_

"And I couldn't agree with you more. I will, just as soon as this is over." Hiccup's eyes scanned the crowd for his dragon, but he couldn't see Toothless' tail fin anywhere.

"I want to see this," The blue dragon came forward and nosed Hiccup roughly in the stomach, "Let's go, human."

Taking one last look around for Toothless, Hiccup sighed and obliged, climbing awkwardly onto the Night Fury's back, "I'll be back soon... probably."

"Hiccup!" Astrid whined, but he was already gone.

Exhaling, Hiccup said, "I saw a Monstrous Nightmare down by the beach earlier. He looked exhausted... That's probably the best place to start." They came to land by said Monstrous Nightmare who looked up at Hiccup lazily and snorted. Hiccup fell off of the blue dragon and made his way closer to the Nightmare, who tensed. "Alright, alright, I'm not gonna hurt you..." He held his arms up as he slowly circled the dragon, who watched his every move. "Those Outcasts really wore you out, huh? Just how many of them crammed on your back?"

"Four," The dragon mumbled, not really thinking Hiccup would hear him anyway, "But it was that wooden contraption that was most cumbersome."

"Wooden contraption? The bola launcher!" Hiccup realized, startling the Nightmare by understanding him. Remembering how heavy and hard to move that thing had been (granted, he wasn't nearly as strong as a Monstrous Nightmare,) Hiccup winced, "That must've been rough. And it's not exactly a quick flight over here either." He paused, considering, "They really don't care about you at all, do they? You're just slave labor to them." The dragon said nothing, and it was then that Hiccup remembered something he almost always carried with him. After some groping around he finally managed to find what he was looking for. "This might cheer you up some," He said softly, extending a hand full of dragon nip. The dragon eyed him, shrinking his head back a bit. "No, no, it's okay, it won't hurt you. It's called dragon nip." Finally, the dragon seemed to get a whiff of it and moved in to take the stuff from Hiccup's hand, chewing it happily.

The sapphire dragon rolled his eyes, "And this was your plan? Feed a Monstrous Nightmare dragon nip?"

Hiccup shunned the nonbeliever and asked, "There, how's that feel?"

"Purple! It feels very... purple," The Nightmare decided, a rather content look on his face.

"Purple? Alright, I'm just going to go ahead and assume purple is a good feeling," Hiccup decided, shooting a sideways glance at the Night Fury before continuing, "Say, could I ask you for a favor? I can show you where I got that dragon nip from." The dragon perked at this, eyeing Hiccup. "I need you to convince the other dragons that the Outcasts are evil. They've been attacking the island I'm from- with the dragon nip- for ages, and they just want to use you to get to us. That's why they came here in the first place. With Night Furies, they'd be unstoppable! We're not like the Outcasts... To us, dragons are... members of the tribe. We feed and look after our dragons better than we do some of our human residents, and we'd never make any one dragon carry so much weight. We all work together, as a team. That's what Berk is all about. For the Outcasts it's more of a "One for all and all for one" situation. There's a reason they're called the Outcasts."

The dragon cooed, "And if I do this, you'll show me to the dragon nip?" Hiccup nodded fervently, hoping he wasn't making a mistake with this promise. "Very well then, I'll hold you to that promise." With this, the Monstrous Nightmare took to the skies, and Hiccup, once again on the sapphire dragon's back, followed and watched as the Nightmare got the attention of the other dragons... And then, the fighting stopped. At least, between the dragons. The Outcasts, being former Vikings, had stubbornness issues.

Alvin was outraged. " 'ey! Wha's the matter with my dragons?!" He snapped, breaking free of Stoick's choke hold to get a better look. "Go on, get 'em!" Alvin commanded, but the dragons did no such thing. Instead, they dropped from the sky and, one by one, grabbed Outcasts in their claws and flew off with them.

"Well, that was a nice touch I didn't see coming." Hiccup murmured in approval. The dragon beneath him began jerking about mid-flight and the boy had to hold on for dear life to keep from falling. "Are you- are you laughing?"

"So STUPID!" The dragon chuckled, "To think that it only took one, and one that listened to a human no less! A HUMAN! Stupid dragon!"

Hiccup was unamused. "And what do you call what we're doing here?" That silenced the dragon, who finally came to land in the clearing once more, rearing up to dump Hiccup off of his back. "Ow, okay, I deserved that," The teen admitted, allowing Astrid to help him to his feet. The Monstrous Nightmare landed beside Hiccup expectantly, and the boy smacked a hand to his forehead, heaving a sigh. "Right. You... probably want me to hold up my end of the deal now."

"That's right." Astrid replied, "You've got some explaining to do."

"Not _you_ Astrid, I promised this Monstrous Nightmare I'd show him where the Dragon Nip grows wild if he convinced the other dragons to turn on the Outcasts. It's complicated, but I'm going to have to ask you to show him where it is. I'm in no condition to fly right now, so I'm going to be stuck here for a while longer."

"You were just flying a minute ago," Stoick pointed out.

"I mean long-distance, that was an emergency situation." Hiccup glanced around and noticed Flamewing was approaching him. Not good. If his father found out he could magically talk to dragons... He didn't want to know what would happen. "Look, just, take care of that for me, and I'll see you in a few days." He said, backing away from his fellow Vikings.

"Hiccup!" Astrid began, but Stoick rested a hand on her shoulder.

"It's alright, Astrid. Hiccup's safer on an island full of dragons than he'd ever be on an island full of strangers. You take care of yourself, son. We'll come back to check on you if you haven't returned in three days' time." Stoick told the boy, meeting Hiccup's gaze.

A bit nervous about how the Night Furies would react to that, Hiccup said, "I'm pretty sure that won't be necessary, but thanks, dad."

"Well then, let's get going. It's a long flight home, and we don't have much daylight left." Stoick commanded, and as everyone mounted their dragons, Toothless finally came out of the underbrush and nudged Stoick, looking up at him hopefully. Of course, Stoick was not a man who was particularly good at reading emotions, so he simply said, "Take good care of my boy, Toothless." With this, the group of Vikings took off, headed home, to Berk.

Hiccup didn't have much time to wonder what that was all about, because the moment their dragons were out of sight, Flamewing was on top of him, pinning him to the ground. Toothless was about to rush in to the rescue when help suddenly came from an unexpected source. The blue dragon stepped forth, baring his teeth, "Let him be, Flamewing. He helped us just now."

"Sky!" The great dragon hissed, but backed down nonetheless, "Why do you defend him?"

"He came to my rescue," Sky replied thoughtfully, "Our rescue. We'd still be fighting if not for him."

"He rode you," Flamewing growled, "Does that not enrage you?!"

"It would have, had I not agreed to it. Like it or not, Flamewing, he's the reason why we're all still here and not at war." Sky glanced back at Hiccup, "He's clever, for a human, and he knows dragons."

Seeing that he no longer had to defend Sky's honor, Flamewing calmed down some and set his eyes on Hiccup, "I suppose I should thank you for cutting me free."

"It was... nothing..." Hiccup managed before falling face-first into the grass.

When he awoke, he found that he was lying on much softer, yet uncomfortable, ground, in nearly complete darkness. There was a fire that barely managed to illuminate the corner of the "room" he was in. It couldn't truly be called a room, as it was a cave, but nonetheless... As his eyes adjusted to the light, Hiccup picked up a handful of floor, which, on closer inspection, he found to be Night Fury scales, several inches deep, that coated the room. It must have taken ages to amass this many scales, and Hiccup couldn't begin to fathom how many dragons had shed their scales here. Glancing up, he noticed a black mass across from him. After staring for a moment, he was finally able to make out the shape of a saddle on a sleeping Night Fury's back. Never had he been happier to see Toothless, and he would have jumped over the fire to give his friend a hug if he weren't worried about startling him. Instead, he called out, "Toothless!" Grass green eyes opened slowly, and, much to Hiccup's disappointment, the dragon rolled over, turning his back to Hiccup. The boy's heart sank, "Talk to me, bud, what's wrong?" Instead, Toothless got to his feet and left the light of the fire to Odin-knows-where. "Toothless..." Hiccup was, understandably crushed. What had he done wrong? Suddenly, he had the feeling he was being watched. Turning, he saw an uncomfortably high number of eyes upon him, glimmering in the fire light. "Toothless-" He called, alarmed now as he sat up, backing up against the wall as the eyes edged closer.

"They're more afraid of you than you are of them," A calm voice assured him, and into the light stepped Sky, the blue Night Fury from before. "They ran off when you started to wake up."

Finally, he was able to make out the forms of at least a dozen tiny Night Furies behind those glowing eyes. One, a tad smaller than the rest, was the closest to him. "H-hey there little one," He tried, not entirely sure what young Night Furies were capable of.

Noticing that the human's eyes were on her, and that she was being addressed, the smallest Night Fury stepped forward into the light. She was, to say the least, unlike anything Hiccup had ever seen before. Pure snow white with blood red eyes, not a fleck of any other color on her. She edged closer than any of her fellow hatchlings dared, sniffing at Hiccup as she made a half-circle around him, as much as the walls would allow. Finally, she sat down in front of him and looked him in the eyes for a moment with that same intense curiosity he'd seen on Toothless so long ago. "You smell funny." She announced. The laughter of the other Night Furies seemed to scare her. She flattened her ears back against her head and lowered her belly to the ground, "I mean, your leg," She clarified, "It doesn't smell like the rest of you."

"Oh!" This made a bit more sense to Hiccup, "You mean this?" He reached down, the sudden movement causing the rest of the Night Furies to recoil in fear, but not this little one. He removed his prosthetic leg and held it out to her.

The young dragoness sniffed the strange thing and then, suddenly, retracted her tiny teeth and bit down on the prosthetic. When it didn't give like normal flesh should, she pulled back and blinked, "What _is_ that?"

"It's a fake leg, like Toothless- ... Pixie's, left tail fin." He tried to explain. This seemed to shock her.

"My tailfin?!" She whirled around and began to chase her tail, trying to sniff it. Hiccup noted with vast amusement that young Night Furies tails are shorter proportionally than older ones.

"Not yours, the traitor's. The alpha's son." Sky told her, then to Hiccup, he added, "It's custom to name the runt of the litter Pixie. It's intended to embarass them into proving their worth, to make them work harder to earn their place in the pack."

Hiccup smirked. He'd learned so much about Toothless in these past few days it wasn't even funny. "It's Viking tradition to name runts "Hiccup."" When the dragon didn't seem to understand why he was being told this, Hiccup added, "My name is Hiccup."

* * *

Props to AlexjohnD for the idea to make the name "Pixie" a tradition. xD Love it.

But what the heck is going on with Toothless, right? Well, I know, but... You'll know. Any guesses?

Also, I'd like to ask- what do we think about Berk? Should I write "meanwhiles" while Hiccup is on the Isle of Night? Or just assume life goes back to the usual. I'm sure I can come up with some shenanigans that makes them see how much they need Hiccup, but would you be interested in said shenanigans? Let me know~


	5. Tell Me a Story

"That's a funny name." Pixie commented, and Hiccup had to fight the urge to point out the fact that hers wasn't much better by reminding himself that she was just a child.

"Well, I'm... not like other Vikings." He admitted, bringing the prosthetic limb up to his face as a small smile graced his lips, "Like this leg. It's obviously a fake to take the place of the real one, but it's different than other fake legs, too. See this indentation here is made special to match Toothless'..." The sound of his dragon's name brought him back from his rambling, "Toothless' saddle." He finished a bit sadly before putting the limb back where it belonged.

Seeming to notice his change in tone, the young dragoness stepped closer, pressing herself flat against the ground. She wanted to nuzzle him affectionately as her mother did for her when she was upset, but she knew humans were supposed to be the enemy. The only reason he'd been allowed in the nursery was because he'd been asleep, and it was a good chance for the hatchlings, who had never seen humans before, to study them. Seeing what she was doing, Hiccup couldn't help but smile again, reminded of the first day he'd fed Toothless. Eventually, she gave up and backed off a bit, curling into herself. "Where's your real leg?" Another one of the younglings wondered aloud.

"It... Well, I don't know exactly what happened to it. Either it got burned off by the explosion of the Red Death, or it broke off when I hit the ground. Most likely burned off- Toothless took most of the heat and impact for me." Hiccup replied, "I got knocked unconscious by the Red Death's tail, so I don't know for sure. You'd have to ask him, he saw the whole thing."

"The Red Death?" One of the young voices chirped. They were often told stories about the Red Death's influence over other dragon species as a cautionary tale, so they knew at least a little bit about her, "You fought the Red Death and _lived?_"

Hiccup chuckled, "Yeah, pretty amazing, isn't it? I'd be dead by now if Toothless hadn't gotten to me when he did," Again, at the mention of Toothless, Hiccup felt a pang of worry deep in his chest. What had he done to offend the dragon?

"Oh, tell us the story!" Young Pixie begged, seemingly over her pout, as she was now sitting up, making the most adorable and pathetic puppy dog face Hiccup had ever seen. Granted, he really only ever got that face from Toothless. If one of the Vikings tried it, he'd probably be scared half to death.

"We love stories!" Another voice chirped, "Please tell us! We hardly know anything about life outside these tunnels!"

Hiccup glanced over at Sky, who was now joined by Flamewing and the alpha female. They all seemed to be listening intently, and Flamewing even gave him a nod of approval. "Alright... Well... It all started the night I shot Toothless down." He explained, in great detail, about how he met Toothless and learned from him, and how they came to be friends, flying with him for the first time, all of the events leading up to, and including, the death of the Red Death- even going into detail about what went on in the dragon training arena. He was so engrossed in telling the story that he didn't even notice how much closer the hatchlings had gotten- now, several of them were visible in the light, and the little one who had first started talking to him was curled up against his side, her head resting on his thigh as she listened intently.

A bit shell-shocked by all of this information, Sky wondered aloud, "Your pack used to kill dragons for status?"

With a small nod, Hiccup replied, "We just didn't understand why they attacked us back then, but now that we've made peace with the dragons, life on Berk is much better. Dragons and human helping each other and working together, protecting each other. I know it sounds insane- if anyone had even suggested the theory before I met Toothless, I would've thought them to be insane, but... It feels right, now." Looking directly into Flamewing's eyes, he added, "We're not all that different... In fact, there are a lot of similarities between us... If you'd just give me a chance to show you, we don't have to misunderstand each other anymore." The dragon bristled at this, and Hiccup redirected his gaze to the little one in his lap, falling silent.

"Why did you spare Toothless?" Pixie asked softly, seeming to have accepted the elder Pixie's new name. "You could've had everything, and like your teacher said, a downed dragon is a dead dragon. Even we Night Furies believe that."

Well, okay, so he might have forgotten to mention a few conversations when he told the story. "Well, I..." He exhaled deeply and let his head fall back against the wall. Looking into the darkness he could almost see those green eyes trained upon him, as they had been that fateful day. "I made a mistake. All Vikings know not to look into your prey's eyes, but I did, and... When I looked at him, looked into his eyes... I saw myself. I'm only just now beginning to realize that I didn't know the half of how true that was."

"Hmm," The child purred, considering this. "And what did you look like?"

Hiccup furrowed his brow. He hadn't been expecting that. "Lost, lonely, hurt... Ashamed."

"Because you're a runt?" Another of the hatchlings wondered.

"Well, yes," The boy admitted, "But more than that. I'm the chief's son. I'm supposed to be the manliest, most viking-like person the world has ever seen, and yet there I was, standing in front of a dragon that I couldn't even take down without the help of a machine, and I couldn't even kill him..." He glanced to Flamewing apologetically, "That thing that shot Sky down, it was an invention of mine, what I used against Toothless. I don't know how in Odin's great green earth they got it,but..." He rubbed his temples, struggling to think through his throbbing headache. Finally, it came to him. "That no-good, lousy traitor!" He snapped, getting to his feet so suddenly he lost his balance and fell flat on his face. Lucky for him, the ground was padded by scales that broke his fall. Realizing there was nothing he could do in his current state, he sat back against the wall once more, glowering at the fire, "Mildew!"

Flamewing huffed indignantly, "I'll have you know our hatchery is free of mold!"

"No, no, not that... Mildew is the name of one of Berk's former vikings. A stubborn old man who hated dragons and tried his best to get rid of them at every turn. I should've known better than to trust him!" Hiccup curled himself into the fetal position, "This is all my fault." He realized, "The raid, the bola launcher, even Toothless' initial capture. If I'd just listened when he tried to get me away from that book-!" He hung his head in despair, his tiny frame shaking.

Pixie placed her paws on his thigh and nudged her face between his legs and his face, a space just big enough for the runt's little head. Now nose-to-nose with this peculiar human, she asked sweetly, "Does this mean you'll tell us another story?"

Hiccup couldn't help himself. A smile broke out across his face and he chuckled softly at the young dragoness' innocence. "I'll tell you all the stories you want to hear, Pixie." He said, sitting back a bit. She met his gaze and twitched her lips some, trying to imitate his smile. When she finally managed, Hiccup, without thinking, grabbed the tiny thing in his arms and hugged her tight to his chest. "Thanks, girl... I needed that." He murmured, not noticing that the other dragons had gone tense, ready to attack. Pixie was perfectly content, however, purring softly as she was lowered to the ground. Finally noticing the intense atmosphere, Hiccup mumbled, "Sorry, that's... That's what Toothless did one of the first days in the cove. Copied my smile... He's been acting strangely since we got here."

"Tell us the story about Mildew," Pixie pleaded, not giving him the chance to dwell on the subject of Toothless, which was probably a good thing. It's unhealthy to worry like that, especially when sick.

"Right, the story." At this, most of the Night Furies settled down again, though Pixie's mother and the alphas were still a bit anxious. "Well, Mildew's always been a cranky, stubborn old man, for as long as I can remember, and when we made peace with the dragons, he kinda went off the deep end. I swear he spent every waking hour plotting against the dragons. One time he got them all so sick they nearly died, but luckily we found a cure for it just in time. That's just the kind of guy Mildew is, he, he does these things without even batting an eyelid." He exhaled, trying to calm his nerves, "Well, what happened was, Mildew tricked me into believing there was an Island full of Night Furies... Which, I now know is true, but he gave us directions to a deserted island. The notes he forged warned that Night Furies don't get along well with other dragons."

"Well that much is true," Flamewing's mate murmured thoughtfully.

Hiccup rubbed his forehead, "Right, I know that _now._ I didn't back then... So I took Toothless out to the island, alone. Just the two of us. Toothless... He tried to warn me, but I just wasn't picking up on his cues... When we got to the island, we called for Night Furies, and we saw what appeared to be a Night Fury come out and call back to us. At first I was excited and sent Toothless to go meet him, but then I realized that something just wasn't right and I called him back, but by then it was too late. The Outcasts captured both Toothless and myself and brought us back to their island, demanding that I train their dragons. When they imprisoned me, they made a big fuss in front of my cage and put Mildew in the one across from me, saying they'd changed their minds about a deal they had. At first I ignored him and kept using my rock to dig through the rock-" The dragons shot him the same "you idiot" look Toothless had when he'd told this story before. "I was desperate, alright? I just... I had to get to Toothless."

Sky blinked at this. "Toothless? You said you were captured. Weren't you concerned for your _own_ freedom?"

"Not without Toothless." Hiccup replied without hesitation, "I'd never leave him behind like that. The thought never even crossed my mind 'til now." The dragon seemed perplexed by this until Hiccup explained, "It's just like you, Sky. I could've left you where you were to tear yourself to bits trying to get free and run off on another dragon, but instead I risked my life to go after you without a second thought. That's how important Toothless is to me. All dragons, really. If it were a fellow viking I'd do the same thing... Dragons are not my enemies, they're my friends... I see them as friends, even if they're too proud to accept that. I'm alright with that. I'm used to having friends who are too proud to call themselves such." He admitted, grabbing his arm out of nervous habit. "The only real exception to that is the Red Death. There was no reconciling what she had done." For a time, there was silence as the words were absorbed by the dragons, before finally, Hiccup continued the story. "Mildew suggested I 'give them what they want.' A dragon trainer. So I announced that I would train their dragons, then, when the guard opened my door, I hit him over the head as hard as I could with my fake leg. It didn't work out as well as I wanted it to, but Mildew actually helped me. He used this creepy staff thing he carries around to knock the guard's head against the door of his cell, and that knocked him out."

"Nice!" One of the hatchlings cheered, imagining the scene.

"Well, not _that_ nice. It was all just a ploy. He got me to set him free so he could help me through the tunnels to Toothless, who had somehow already gotten himself out, unbeknownst to me. The fastest way to get to the place they kept Toothless was through a lava field full of wild dragons. I knew we'd need help when we got to the guards, so I befriended a Nadder... Unfortunately, part of that process meant I had to tell Mildew how to earn the dragon's trust. He must've passed that information along to Alvin... See, because when we were making our escape, Mildew "fell" off of that Nadder, and we had to leave him behind because we were so vastly outnumbered. He planned the whole thing..." He sighed and rubbed his temples, "He must have taken the bola launcher when he packed up all of his stuff. His house was empty before Toothless and I even left for the island. He must have had some sort of rendezvous with Alvin without anyone noticing..." Hiccup's head fell back against the wall, "This is all my fault," He concluded, closing his eyes.

Pixie shifted uncomfortable, "Sounds more like it was Mildew's fault to me." She stated simply, "He's the bad guy, right?"

"Yeah... I guess... But if I'd just paid more attention to Toothless in the first place-"

"So why didn't you?" The young dragoness pressed.

Hiccup had to take a moment to think about this. "I guess I was just so excited about the possibility of other Night Furies existing. Up until now, we've really had no evidence of that."

"That man, Alvin," Flamewing interjected, "He's been to this island before. The first time he came, it was at night, and we were able to evade him by keeping to the skies, but he knew we were here. He found some scales and footprints. He even took some of those scales, probably to use on that fake Night Fury."

"I've been meaning to ask," Hiccup said suddenly, "Why is the floor of this area covered in scales?"

"The hatchlings." Sky replied, "They shed more frequently than we do, and while we'd normally clean up a mess like this, we find that when they practice flying, it makes their landings a bit less painful."

"Oh!" Hiccup looked down at the scales, somewhat surprised. He hadn't even thought of that, and, to say the least, he was impressed by this.

"Anyway, it's time for the young ones to sleep, and you should get some rest yourself, boy. Don't get too comfortable on this island." Flamewing warned, turning and walking away. The hatchlings groaned, begging for another story first, but of course, their mothers refused them.

Pixie, however, had a very different request. "Can I stay here with Hiccup?" She wondered, looking to her mother nervously. "Please? He'll keep me warm! You and the others move around too much in your sleep." Being the runt, and an albino, Pixie had some body heat issues. When her mother finally nodded her consent, Pixie's face lit up and she pounced on top of Hiccup with shocking force, knocking him to the padded ground below before curling up on his chest.

Hiccup gave her a lopsided smile and said softly, "You're brave, offering to sleep by a scary human."

"You're not scary." Pixie murmured bluntly, "You're nice, not like the humans in stories at all." The boy reached up and rested a hand on the young one's back, feeling her every breath.

"Thank you." He whispered finally before drifting off to sleep.

When he woke some time later, Hiccup found that Pixie was already wide awake, just watching him sleep from her perch on his chest. "Hey there, Pixie," He greeted, gently scratching the scales behind her head.

As she melted into his touch, another voice said, "You sleep too much."

Startled, Hiccup sat up suddenly, holding Pixie against him protectively. After a moment of adjusting to the light, Hiccup finally saw the owner of the voice. "Sky, don't sneak up on me like that!" He chided, releasing the small dragon into his lap.

"He was here the whole time." She chirped, "Toothless came by, too, you slept right through it. All the hatchlings wanted a chance to talk to him, like he was famous. He didn't stay long though, he just came to see how you were doing, then left."

Hiccup sighed uneasily. Well, if Toothless was concerned about him, that was a good thing, right? It meant they were still friends? "After all this time, I'm finally able to understand him when he talks to me... So why does he keep shutting me out?" He wasn't really asking anyone in particular, more just thinking out loud, but Pixie didn't see it that way.

"Maybe he's scared?" Hiccup blinked, jostled from his thoughts, and looked down at her. "Maybe he's scared he'll say something wrong."

Sky tilted his head thoughtfully, "He did smell faintly of fear... I thought it was Flamewing's presence and didn't think much of it. The two of them have never been close."

Hiccup opened his mouth to ask what had happened between them, then closed it again. No, that was something he should ask Toothless directly, provided they ever spoke again. "Maybe..." He admitted finally, "Seems like a silly thing to worry about after all we've been through, though." There was silence for a time before Pixie suddenly bounced out of Hiccup's lap, took a few steps into the darkness, then looked back expectantly.

"Well? We're going on an adventure, right? To find Toothless?" She asked, trying her best to mask the sheer joy she felt at the prospect of leaving the cave.

Hiccup glanced over his shoulder at Sky for approval. While he did want to find and talk to Toothless, he didn't want to risk his life to do so by "kidnapping" Pixie. "I'll tell your mother and Flamewing where you're going. You stay close to Hiccup, understood? And the first hint of danger, come running back here."

"Yes, sir!" Pixie chirped, looking to Hiccup excitedly.

"Is this really okay?" He asked Sky in a hushed tone.

The dragon chuckled, "She's a Pixie. Nobody would care if she disappeared. Why do you think her mother let her stay with you?" This said, Sky stalked off into the darkness, and Hiccup looked to the runt with a pang of guilt.

No one would care if she went missing? Well, he wouldn't let that happen, anyway. "Do you know the way out?"

"I'm never allowed to go, but I know the way..." She paused for a moment and frowned, "But you can't make noise-pictures, can you?"

"Noise-pictures?" Hiccup's mind raced back to the time Toothless had used a strange sound to find his way out of a cave-in. The noises made pictures? "No, I... Humans can't do that."

"Grab my tail, then. I'll lead the way- just don't hold on too tight, okay?" She more or less thrust her tail into his fist, anxious to get moving.

"Yeah... Right behind you." Hiccup gently held the tail between two fingers and slowly followed his guide through the abyss.

* * *

Told you I'd start responding to reviews with PMs. Nobody told me though, what do you all think about the shenanigins I mentioned in the last chapter? Should I do them or not? I'm just going to assume not if nobody says anything.

Isn't little Pixie cute? I'm thinking of having Hiccup give her a better name. Any thoughts/opinions/suggestions?

Either way, hope you liked this chapter! Review please~!


	6. Irreplaceable

Who's ready for some Toothcup (friendship) fluff? I know I am! Brace yourselves, kiddies, it's coming at ya full force in this next chapter, which is brought to you by the song "All the Same" by the Sick Puppies. Never heard it? Check it out. I don't own that song or the band, by the way. If I did, I'd have money. And make them live with me and serenade me at random hours of the day. :Y

* * *

Eventually, the two of them made it out of the cave, though it really wasn't much brighter outside than it was inside. Hiccup stood up and brushed himself off, happy to finally be standing after crawling around in the caves behind Pixie for so long. He bent down and scooped the little one up in his arms, just in case there was some unseen danger lurking in the shadows. Even if Sky said nobody would care if she went missing, he knew he'd feel terrible. Not surprisingly, the moment her feet left the ground, Pixie began to whine. "Heeyy! Put me down! I wanna feel the grass between my claws~"

"When we find Toothless I'll put you down. I don't want you to get hurt." Hiccup replied as he began wandering about aimlessly. Normally, he would just call for Toothless, but with the dragon had been acting lately, Hiccup figured it was probably best to catch him unawares.

The young dragoness looked up at him sadly, her ears flat against her skull, "You know, you don't have to be so careful with me. They'll forgive you if I end up missing, like Sky said. I'm nothing special to them, just another mouth to feed."

"I used to feel like that, too," Hiccup admitted, deciding that he needed a break after crawling through the tunnels and walking around so much. He'd somehow managed to find the beach where they'd first landed- he recognized the charred driftwood right away. Sitting down against said log, he set the dragon down in his lap. "You want to hear that story?" He wondered, looking down to her. She nodded happily, always ready for a story, especially ones that were told just to her. It made her feel important, on some level.

"Well, back before Toothless came around, I was the most useless person on the island. My dad would hardly even show his face in public, he was so ashamed of me, which is bad, because he's the chief... Alpha, in your terms." Already, with just this little bit of information, Pixie was cutting him off.

"Your dad is alpha, too?!"

Hiccup smiled down at her, "Yeah, but my mom... She died when I was young, so I don't remember much about her. For the most part, it was just my dad and I growing up, and the whole time he hardly ever even looked at me, and when he did, it meant I had done something really bad." With a sad sigh at the memory, he paused and dropped his head back against the log. Startled by a head hanging over him, green eyes gazing into his own, he got to his feet all too quickly, knocking poor Pixie to the ground before falling back on his butt."T-Toothless!"

"Your father isn't _that_ bad." Toothless corrected, coming around to the other side of the log to help Hiccup to his feet. "He doesn't listen to you all the time, but he's not always ignoring you. And he goes out all the time."

Gathering himself, Hiccup sat back against the log and drew Pixie into his lap, "He's better now. I was telling Pixie how things were before everything changed, but never mind that now, what's gotten into you, Toothless? You've been avoiding me since we got to this island!"

Toothless slicked his ears back against his head and averted his gaze, contemplating simply walking away from this conversation. Apparently, Pixie picked up on this and hopped out of Hiccup's arms, right into Toothless' line of sight, "Don't you dare run away! Hiccup's been really worried about you, and I know you're worried about him too, since you check on him so much. Are you that afraid of saying something wrong?"

The elder Pixie was taken aback by this. Well, by all of it. First a youngling blocking his path, then telling him what to do and assuming insane things? "You don't know anything about this!" He started to leave when he felt a weight on his tail. Glancing back, he saw Hiccup had a hand on it. He wasn't holding firmly to prevent him from leaving, just trying to get his attention.

"Please don't do this, bud. I don't know what awful thing you think is going to come of us talking, but I can assure you it won't." He said softly, absent mindedly stroking the scales on the dragon's tail.

"It already has!" Toothless protested, "I never should have brought you here!"

"What's so bad about it?" Silence fell between them before Hiccup finally tried, "I've been meaning to ask you, Toothless, why _did_ you bring me here? You keep saying you never wanted to come back here, so why did you?"

Toothless lowered his head slightly, "Because you were so upset about the island being fake, because you really wanted there to be other Night Furies... I thought that giving you what you wanted would make you happy."

"And you think running off as soon as we found them made me happy?" Hiccup wondered dryly.

"What do you care? You probably didn't even notice! You've got other Night Furies now, you don't need me!" He drew his tail away from Hiccup, "Just like Snotlout said, I'm... I'm broken. All this time you've been putting up with me for the novelty of being the only Viking with a Night Fury, even made me a fake tail fin that I could use to fly with on my own so I'd be more like the real thing." The dragon's voice was cracking with each painful word, "I don't like seeing you with other dragons. I thought that if I distanced myself from you while you were with Sky it would be best..."

Hiccup's jaw was nearly hitting the ground he was so shocked. "That's what this is all about?! You think I wanted a replacement?" Toothless flinched at the word, as if he'd been smacked. "Toothless, buddy," He crawled over to the dragon and grabbed the sides of his head, turning it to look him in the eye, "You're my best friend. To even think that I'd consider you as a replaceable part of my life... Toothless, without you, I'm... nothing. I'm just Hiccup."

"You're just Hiccup now." Toothless reminded.

"Toothless, you don't understand. Everything I have now, I have because of you. My friends, Astrid... even my father." He heaved a sigh and sat back against the driftwood log, "You know what? Pixie, come here, I'm going to finish my story. It's about time you heard it too, Toothless." The elder dragon opened his mouth to protest, but was silenced by a look from Pixie, who moved to her place in Hiccup's lap.

"What I said about my father, that was all true, but it wasn't just him. I was the laughingstock of the village. Everything I tried to do I failed miserably at. I failed miserably at... Being a Viking. I couldn't fight, I could hardly hold up an ax, and even the others my age wouldn't spare me a passing glance, at least not without insulting me. Snotlout was the only one of them who would talk to me, and that was never in a good way. Astrid, she downright hated me. I was always in her way. Gobber was the only person who ever really talked to me, and that was mostly because he had to, because I helped him at the smithy." He ran a hand over Pixie's head as he continued, "My ideas were always disregarded and nobody ever took anything I said seriously. I was the son of the chief, Stoick the Vast, Hear His Name and Tremble, Ug Ug! And yet... I was just so useless at everything. They'd hardly even let me outside during dragon raids because they knew I'd just get in the way. But then, one night, after I'd just completed my bola launcher, I managed to sneak out and do the one thing that I knew would get me recognition. I shot down a Night Fury... But even then, when I found you, I couldn't bring myself to kill you. A viking that couldn't kill a dragon. How could I call myself a Viking at all? Well, after I realized you weren't going to kill me, I thought I'd try to make it up to you, after what I'd done to your tail, and, Toothless, you turned my life around. I started using little tricks I learned from time I spent with you when I was supposed to be fighting dragons, and worked my way to the top of the class."

Toothless looked at him curiously, "What tricks?"

"Well, there was the eel thing. I still don't get the whole dragons vs. eels thing, but it worked! Scared Barf and Belch back into their cage. The Dragon Nip we discovered, I used on Meatlug, and on that Terrible Terror I used the shiny trick with the reflection of the hammer... Oh, and scratching under the neck, I used that move on Stormfly. I was winning without fighting, but a win's a win, and so they decided that I was to kill Hookfang." Hiccup explained.

"You were to kill Hookfang? That's what I walked in on?" There was a slight edge in his voice, but deep down he was fairly certain that Hiccup wouldn't dream of such a thing.

Hiccup nodded, "And during that time, everyone suddenly started to like me, because I was winning. I went from being in the way to being a celebrity almost overnight. I, I knew I couldn't kill a dragon, so I planned to run away with you, Toothless, but Astrid caught me before I could get to you. She pinned me down and you saw her attacking me, so you defended me... Then, well, both of you know the rest." He heaved a sigh, "My point is, without you, I'd still be that in the way, worthless nobody. You're the first to ever look past how pathetic I was to what's inside and give me a chance to prove myself. In a way, you're not just irreplaceable to me, Toothless, you're the only one in my life who could never be replaced." Toothless stiffened at this. "I mean, even Astrid and my father, they don't see me. They see what I've done for Berk... And I want you to be the happiest dragon on the planet. That's why I wanted to find more Night Furies. I thought that you'd be happier if you were surrounded by your friends and family."

"You really... mean that, Hiccup?" Toothless asked softly, pawing at the ground nervously.

"Of course I do!" The boy flashed his signature lopsided grin, "You know, I was never really angry when you kidnapped me. Well, perhaps a bit that I didn't have any warning, but... I've always thought that if life on Berk made you uncomfortable, I'd leave with you and never look back."

"What about your father? And Astrid?" Toothless wondered, finally meeting his gaze.

Hiccup shrugged, "I'd be sad about them, and I'd miss them, but really, I'm used to my life without them. My life without you? It's just scary to think about." Toothless nuzzled against Hiccup's chest, purring loudly. The boy reached up to hug his dragon around the neck, "I'm sorry, buddy. I'll be more clear with you about things like this in the future. It'll be easier now that I can actually talk with you."

"It's fine," Toothless said, pulling away and shaking his head a bit, "I jumped to conclusions. We're both at fault... I was just so scared of losing you-"

"Never gonna happen." Hiccup said firmly.

Pixie, who had been more or less ignored throughout this entire conversation, finally piped up, "What does that makes me?"

With a chuckle, Hiccup replied, "You're a real friend, too, Pixie." She brightened at this, and Hiccup continued, "But I would like to see if the other Night Furies are interested in checking out life on Berk. Not to replace you, but to join you. Maybe if Flamewing sees how my father and I interact he'll learn a thing or two about being a dad."

"We can ask..." Toothless agreed, a bit more self-confident now. "Just don't be offended if they reject you."

The boy yawned, "I know... But I'm hoping I'll be alright to go home tomorrow. You know the twins and Snotlout will get into all kinds of trouble without me there to tell them they're being idiots."

"Don't push yourself," Toothless warned, genuinely concerned.

"I know. I think I'm going to rest out here a while. Would you bring Pixie back home for me? I don't want her to get into trouble on my account."

The tiny dragon huffed, "I don't want to go! I want to stay here with Hiccup!"

"I'll be back soon," Toothless promised, and with this, he retracted his teeth and lifted the runt off the ground in his mouth, carrying her back into the caves with a much lighter heart.

What all of them had somehow failed to notice was the watchful gaze of Sky, who moved in front of Hiccup once Toothless and Pixie were out of sight. "Touching display of affection," He commented, nearly scaring Hiccup out of his pants.

"S-Sky! What is it with you Night Furies and sneaking up on people?!" He scolded, taking a moment to calm down. "What do you want?"

The sapphire dragon turned his gaze to the sky and replied thoughtfully, "Is that really what people are like with dragons on Berk? The way you are with Pixie and Toothless?"

Hiccup hesitated, "For the most part, yes. It wasn't always that way, but now, like I said, dragons are as much a part of our village as the humans."

Sky seemed to consider this for a time before announcing, "I'll speak with Flamewing about these matters; you needn't waste your time. If it comes from you he'll never listen, he's too proud. Personally, I'm interested to see what life is like there, and... I know Pixie's grown attached to you."

Hiccup beamed, "Thank you, Sky," He said softly, then watched the dragon walk off into the night. Things were going to be different around Berk from now on, Hiccup could just feel it.

* * *

Thank you all for the suggestions! I still need more people to talk to me about shenanigans or no, though. I'm thinking of making a different (and shorter) chapter just for them and give a warning that they are shenanigans so people can just skip if they don't want to read it. Thing is, I know it detracts from the seriousness of the story, but sometimes silliness is the medicine we need during serious times. Plus, you KNOW they're going to get into trouble without Hiccup around, and I'm probably going to have to reference, "What happened while he was gone" with a bunch of Peter Griffin-like flashbacks. "Like that time when I..." So... Yeah. Review please, and give me more input on shenanigans! Right now it's a tie between opposing opinions of two people, I feel like that's a bit unfair.


	7. SHENANIGANS! April Fools Special

By popular demand (and because it's April Fools) this chapter will be SHENANIGANS! It'll be long because it's probably going to be the only chapter of pure shenanigans (which is appropriate, because I just remembered, if Hiccup and Toothless don't head back by tomorrow, Stoick is going to send out a search party. Forget about that bit. Heh.) SO! Without further ado, SHENANIGANS! I'll try to make a more... *ahem* "Serious" update later on tonight as well. This chapter will be referred to later and is meant more for reference and comedy than actual serious plot. If you are of the belief that the influx of pure comedy will affect the seriousness of the main plot, I agree with you (but this is still funny.) So feel free to just skip over this chapter if you don't want to ruin the mood. Nothing major happens.

Edit- Changed Hookfang's pronouns to "he" because it bothered people, though if you want to get technical, (Which I tend to do) we don't know any of the dragons genders or sure except for Meatlug. Hookfang has always struck me as a female, personally, but whatever. *shrugs*

* * *

"So, quick question- why are we showing a dragon where the dragon nip is? It'll all be gone by tomorrow!" Fishlegs pointed out as the group of teens led the unfamiliar dragon up a steep hill. They'd left their own dragons behind, as Toothless was the only one who seemed to know where to find the patch of dragon nip they frequented. Of course, it was entirely possible there were other patches on the island, but where, they had no idea.

Astrid, feeling like she had repeated herself more than enough for the day, snapped, "Because Hiccup told us to!"

"Well, I hope he knows what he's doing," Fishlegs muttered nervously.

"You're asking too much," Snotlout decided with a smirk. "That guy can't do anything right, plus he's sick! He probably doesn't even remember what he said."

"Snotlout!" Astrid seethed, shooting a glare at the boy.

"I'm just saying, this wouldn't be the first time he talked us into doing something stupid. Remember that time he dragged us looking for the Boneknapper?" The boy said pointedly as they finally reached the top of the hill, where the dragon began rolling in the wild grass.

Heaving a sigh, the girl reminded, "Which was not a waste of time. If we hadn't been there, Gobber would've been killed trying to keep his belt buckle. Besides, we got a chance to see an uncommon dragon. What more do you want?"

"Treasure would be nice." Tuffnut mused, attracting the attention of Snotlout and Ruffnut. "I mean, Gobber said there was treasure, right?"

"Yeah- a belt buckle made of bone that he was using to keep his pants on. Not a sight I need to relive." Astrid snapped. The teens all shivered, recalling that terrible moment when Gobber's pants came loose. Things that can never be unseen.

"Right, but, if what Gobber said was true, there could be more treasure. I mean, there was an avalanche of frozen Vikings, who knows what those vikings had on them," Fishlegs mused, apparently forgetting what kind of company he kept.

Ruffnut brightened, "Aww, yeah, the frozen vikings! I want to get punched by one!"

"You can't seriously believe that story was true. I mean, meeting Thor? A hammerhead yak riding a hammerhead whale?" Astrid deadpanned, "He just made that up for the sake of the story because he knew you would buy into it."

"The part about the dragon and the treasure were true!" Snorted Snotlout, "I don't see why any of the rest of it is so hard to believe."

Astrid shot him a look. "You can't be serious.

*Spongebob Narrator Voice* One Hour Later...

"I can't believe you were serious. This is insane!" Astrid complained. Somehow, the twins and Snotlout managed to convince Fishlegs that going back to the island where they'd found the Boneknapper was a good idea. She'd tagged along to make sure they didn't get themselves too badly injured. After all, Hiccup was probably expecting the dragon training academy to be in the same order in which he left it. So there they were, on the backs of their respective dragons, headed off to find frozen vikings and hammerhead yaks.

Snotlout, who was leading the party, glanced over his shoulder at her, "Oh, come on! Aren't you even a little bit curious about the treasure?" He wondered aloud.

"No." She deadpanned, "Not at all."

"No wonder you like Hiccup. Neither of you are any fun." Tuffnut mumbled, high five-ing his sister as he said this.

Astrid rolled her eyes, "It's not a matter of fun, it's a matter of common sense! Frozen Vikings don't move! They're frozen!"

"I'll believe that when pigs fly." Snotlout said sarcastically before glancing back at Fishlegs and Meatlug, "Oh, wait, looks like they already do!"

"Seriously, Snotlout?! Hookfang, do something about him!" Astrid commanded, and, true to his nature, Hookfang set his horns aflame, burning Snotlout's hands as punishment.

"Ow! Hey! Why don't you listen when I tell you to do things?" This time, Hookfang's neck caught fire, burning the rider's ample bottom. "Ow! HOOKFANG!"

"Not even dragons like bullies," Fishlegs said, smiling a bit at his good fortune. Hookfang really deserved more credit than he got.

"Just calling it as I see it," Snotlout said in his own defense, looking ahead, "Looks like we're almost here! You guys ready to find some treasure?" Cheers erupted from the twins as Astrid and Fishlegs shared a glance. This plan had Snotlout written all over it- which meant insanity was the only thing that could possibly ensue.

It didn't take quite as long to reach the island on the backs of dragons. Perhaps because the dragons were better fliers than the teens were rowers. Regardless of reason, they landed on the island and began to hunt around. Astrid, trying to talk some sense into the others, pointed out, "We don't even know that this is the right place. Gobber wasn't looking for treasure before, he was looking for the Boneknapper. We could be intruding on their nesting site!"

Fishlegs gulped at this thought. "Mother dragons are the scariest beasts on the planet." When Meatlug turned her head to look at him, he added, "Except you, Meatlug!"

"We'll be fine." Snotlout huffed, "They're just dragons, and we have our own with us this time."

"I wanna see one again! Maybe it'll burn me at the same time a frozen viking punches me!" Tuffnut agreed with a grin.

Astrid folded her arms across her chest, "Really, again with the frozen vikings? I keep telling you there's no such thing as-"

"Aaaahhh!" Fishlegs suddenly shrieked like a girl, jumping onto the nearest person's back, which just so happened to be Snotlout.

"Would you get off me ya big baby?!" Snotlout growled as he shook himself in a rather dog-like fashion to rid himself of Fishlegs.

"Astrid? Wha-what is that?" He asked, pointing to, well, a frozen viking with a hand sticking out. They had inadvertently wandered into an ice field, and said frozen viking had grabbed Fishlegs' ankle as he walked by.

"More like what are those!" Ruffnut corrected. Upon closer inspection, they found that this was not a heap of ice blocks, but rather a heap of frozen vikings... Just like in the avalanche Gobber had described.

Trying her best to fill in for Hiccup, Astrid fumbled to find the words, "I'm, I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation for this."

"Yeah, like _what?"_ Snotlout challenged.

Astrid sucked in a breath, "Well... We're all vikings here. Let's just ask him what happened. Stormfly!" Without needing further command, the Deadly Nadder shot spikes from her tail, shattering the ice around said viking immediately.

The man burst out of the ice and shook it off his clothing, looking around to the teens before clearing his throat and speaking in a voice rather raspy from lack of use, "I'd like to thank you for freeing me from that ice. The last lad stole my dragon's final breastplate and took off."

"Your dragon's...?" Fishlegs wondered aloud. As far as anyone knew, they were the only Viking tribe to have made peace with the dragons... Well, aside from the Outcasts, no thanks to Mildew.

"Aye, you see, our tribe made peace with dragons long ago, and most everyone had a dragon as a companion. Mine, what was known as a Boneknapper, was missing the final part to his breastplate. I searched long and hard for that piece of bone, and finally I found it in the mouth of an Ice Gronckle-"

Of course, Fishlegs just had to cut in. "Ice Gronckle?! I've never geard of such a thing in the book! What's it-"

"Ye are quite rude. Listen when yer elders are speakin lad." The viking scolded, to which Fishlegs mumbled an apology and took a few steps back. "As I were sayin, the Ice Gronckle had it between his teeth, so while he was asleep, I reached in and took it out. I didn't realize he'd been using it as an ice suppressant-"

"A what now?" Astrid demanded, not really willing to buy into this man's story. The moment he said anything about flying yaks, she was leaving, she'd decided.

The man rolled his eyes, "Ice Gronckles are just like that Gronckle ye have thar', only they spit ice instead of fire. Apparently this one was some kind of sick, because the moment I put the bone in my golden chest to give to me Ol' Bones, he started sneezing out ice all over the place! Next thing I knew our whole tribe was frozen in time," He gestured to the other frozen vikings and heaved a sigh, "Then that lad stole the chest from me-"

"-And used the bone as a belt buckle." Snotlout finished for him.

"Well, supposing that story's true- which I'm not- your dragon got his breastplate back. We saw the man you're talking about give it to the dragon with our own eyes." Astrid told the man.

"But what about the Ice Gronckle?" The viking wondered, "What happened to 'im?"

Astrid shrugged, "Maybe the hammerhead yak and hammerhead whale duo took care of him."

"Astrid, you seriously don't believe him? Look at the man, he was frozen for... a long time!" Snotlout gesticulated wildly as he said this, trying to get his point across.

The girl rolled her eyes, "Exactly, his brain's still thawing, and yours is just as frozen as ever. Look, Snotlout, one of us has to stay grounded if we're going to make it back to Berk alive, and you're clearly incapable of accepting that responsibility. See, this is why Hiccup is going to make a better chief than you ever would."

That probably wasn't the wisest thing to say. Snotlout lunged forward, grabbing her by the collar, "What did you say?!"

"I said, GET. A. GRIP." Astrid punctuated each word with a smack across Snotlout's face. "We shouldn't even be wasting our time out here,what if Hiccup comes back and needs our help?"

"Yeah, what if he does?" Snotlout snorted.

"Ugh," She shoved him away, frustrated. "You know what? Fine! Do what you want! Go get yourself killed in search of treasure you're assuming exists, see if I care! Come on, Stormfly." She mounted her rather confused dragon.

Fishlegs, concerned that the only other person with a decent head on their shoulders seemed to be abandoning them, asked, "Um, Astrid? Where are you going?"

"Home! I don't know how Hiccup does this all the time, it's like banging your head against a wall of... THIS." She gestured to Snotlout and the twins, "Hard-headed warmongers just itching to get themselves into something stupid. I'm not dealing with this!" This said, Astrid patted Stormfly's neck and the two were soon airborne.

"W-wait for me!" Fishlegs whimpered, not too keen on being left alone with the three of them. He clambered onto his Meatlug and took off hurriedly. Not surprisingly, when they saw the two other dragons leaving, Hookfang, Barf, and Belch had no problems leaving their riders behind.

"Hookfang, come back here!" Snotlout demanded, and the twins were shouting something along the same lines to their dragon, but they were ignored. Hookfang, Barf, and Belch never were the most loyal dragons.

"Seriously?!" Snotlout folded his arms over his chest, "NOW what are we gonna do?!" He looked to the twins, who had apparently forgotten about their dragon and were currently wrestling. "The twins. Astrid left me with the TWINS." Finally realizing what an idiot he was for starting a fight with her, he sighed and sat down. It was up to him to find a way back home, now.

* * *

I'm just going to leave the rest to your imaginations. I mean, really, this is Snotlout we're talking about. I hope that wasn't too disappointing, I mean, not too much happened... Oh well. I was entertained writing it, and hope you all enjoyed it! I'm going to start the next chapter right... NOW!


	8. Homeward Bound

Toothless, finally having lost Pixie somewhere in the tunnels, nearly ran into Sky at the entrance of the caves. He bristled defiantly, but flattened himself to the ground respectfully nonetheless. "Sky eyed him, "Toothless," He greeted, surprising the dragon by using this name, "That human is something special. You'd best keep him close if you don't want to lose him." Toothless opened his mouth to ask what the other meant by this, but Sky simply smirked and brushed past him, "Remember your place, Toothless. Even if he thinks you're something special, you're still just a traitorous Pixie to us Night Furies."

Toothless glared after Sky before charging off into the night to find Hiccup, right where he left him. "Hiccup!" He sang out in greeting, rushing over and nuzzling his human without even realizing he was doing it.

"Toothless! Hey buddy!" Hiccup gently hugged the Night Fury. When the pair had calmed down some, Hiccup enthused, "Apparently Sky was eavesdropping earlier. He said he'll talk to Flamewing about coming to Berk... Isn't that great?"

The dragon's ears slicked back against his head as he rested his chin in Hiccup's lap, "Yeah, great!" He replied, trying to sound excited about it, "Pixie would be happy to hear that."

Hiccup caught the subtle changes in Toothless and asked softly, "What's wrong? You don't want the other Night Furies around?"

"No, it's not that," Toothless mumbled, closing his eyes, "It's nothing important, I'm just a little... Overwhelmed, I suppose."

The teen wasn't buying this. "Toothless, don't lie to me..." A silence fell between them, allowing Hiccup enough time to think. "Are you still worried I'm going to choose another Night Fury over you?" He asked finally. The dragon met his gaze, but said nothing. "Fine, you know what?" Hiccup moved suddenly, knocking Toothless' head out of his lap. He made quick work of unscrewing his false leg before throwing it out into the ocean. Toothless moved to go after it, but Hiccup placed a hand on his shoulder, stopping him dead in his tracks.

"Hiccup, what are you doing? You can't walk without your leg!" Toothless whimpered, still considering going after the object.

"You can't fly without your tailfin." Hiccup countered, "The day you threw your automatic fin away, what were you thinking?"

Toothless took a moment to recall, "I didn't like being away from you for so long. I don't want to fly again if you're not with me."

The boy gave a lopsided smile, "In other words, symbolically, that tail fin is me." Toothless averted his gaze, but nodded slightly. "Then, Hiccup pushed himself up to his... Well, foot, and almost immediately lost his balance, falling onto Toothless' head. "Then, let my leg, symbolically, be you."

Toothless' eyes widened, "Hiccup, I can still get around without my tail, you... you can't walk without your leg!"

"I can crawl." Hiccup countered, "And that's enough. Because if I were in trouble, even if I could get away, I know you'd come for me. I know I can always count on you, that you'll always be there for me... And you're the only one I want in that position. Can you imagine how weird it would be if I started calling for Meatlug when I was in trouble?" Toothless looked like he'd tasted something extremely bitter at the thought of this. "You support me, Toothless, just like you are now, every day, in everything you do, you support me, and I do my best to return that favor. I know I'm not always the best at it, but I try to support you, to allow the wind to fill your wings." He rubbed his cheek against the top of the dragon's head before slowly standing upright, still leaning on Toothless a bit. The way you feel about not wanting to fly without me... I'm the same way. I only ride other dragons when I have to, you know that. I'd much rather be with you, buddy... Other Night Furies are no exception. Nobody's going to replace you, ever."

Toothless' expression softened a bit as he eased Hiccup back down onto the sand before wading out to retrieve the leg, which, thanks to Hiccup's lack of strength, wasn't too far from shore. He set the hunk of metal down at Hiccup's side before sitting down himself, "I understand... But you don't have to cripple yourself to prove your point. Besides, that leg is the one that works with my tail, right? We still need to fly home..."

Hiccup's eyes narrowed questioningly, "Do you _really_ understand, Toothless?" The dragon nodded solemnly and Hiccup's expression brightened, "Good... Because I never want to see you make that face again." Toothless smiled a bit and curled up around Hiccup protectively.

"You don't seem as warm now," He commented in a soft purr.

"I'm feeling much better," Hiccup agreed, "I'm hoping to go home tomorrow..." There was silence between them as Hiccup put his prosthetic leg back in place. After a time, he asked, "Toothless? What are we gonna do?"

Concerned, Toothless furrowed his brow, "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I can understand dragonese now. Everything you and the other dragons say, I'm going to hear, so... What do I do? Should I keep it a secret? What would my father think?" Hiccup sighed and leaned back against his dragon, "I don't regret wishing I could properly converse with dragons, especially you, but... I'm still worried about what the others will say."

"You don't have to tell them," Toothless mused, "If you do, they'll just want to use you to ask their own dragons questions. Be an intermediary." Hiccup nodded slightly at this. Toothless was right, of course, but what if he made a mistake? What if he gave himself away somehow, reacting to something one of the dragons said without thinking? Toothless nudged him back into reality, "Don't worry so much. I'll talk to the other dragons about minding what they say around you, and it'll be fine."

Hiccup relaxed a bit at this and a peaceful silence fell between them. For a time, Toothless thought that Hiccup had fallen asleep and was about to do the same when suddenly the boy asked, "Toothless? Why did your father banish you?"

Toothless shifted uncomfortably, "Do you remember... A while back, there was a Whispering Death, as you called it, who was trying to kill me?"

Hiccup shivered at the memory of Toothless' strange behavior, "How could I forget? There was a grudge between you two, right? There was a scar from a night fury bite on him."

"That... wasn't from me." Toothless mumbled, "That was my father's handiwork. You see, I had, for a long time, been sneaking out in the night to assist the other dragons in their raids, because I knew what would happen to them if they failed, and I pitied them. Of course attacking the humans was wrong, but you had food to spare, and they needed it to stay alive. Well, one night, I followed the other dragons back to the Red Death, and saw an infantile Whispering Death offer her a single fish, much like that Gronckle we saw earlier. I couldn't just sit back and watch the poor child be eaten, so I rushed in and grabbed him just in time. The Red Death was furious-"

"That's why she was so intent on killing you," Hiccup mused, understanding.

"Right. Because I took her meal away. Well, I brought that Whispering Death back to the Isle of Night here and looked after him. As it was, he was orphaned- his mother was eaten by the Red Death, so he was all alone." Toothless looked down at his claws nervously, "But then, my father found out. He was completely enraged. The next thing I knew, my whole pack was after us, chasing us off of the island in opposite directions, my father heading up the chase after that Whispering Death and my mother after me. She clipped my left tailfin in the fight, but I managed to get away. The last thing I heard was my father shouting, "If I ever catch either of you around here again, I'll have both your hides!" Toothless shuddered as every last detail flooded back to him. "My father must have bitten him when he was trying to escape, as my mother did me."

Hiccup was a bit confused, "But if you helped him, why did he want to fight you?"

"He thought I abandoned him." Toothless admitted, "Because I didn't go looking for him. Honestly, I was afraid of what I might find. I never meant to abandon him, I never meant for him to get hurt, I was just trying to help..."

Hiccup reached up and gently rand his hand over Toothless' head, "You did the right thing," He assured his dragon.

Toothless eyed him, "Did I? He tore apart the whole village!"

"Nothing we haven't dealt with before," Hiccup reminded gently, "Besides, it looked like you two made up in the end, right?"

"I think so," Toothless murmured, "I explained my end and he seemed to understand."

"So all's well that ends well," Hiccup curled up against the massive body behind him and closed his eyes, preparing for sleep.

"My father still hasn't forgiven me." Toothless reminded dryly, "Nor has my mother, or the rest of my pack."

"Well then, we'll have to show them how ridiculous they're being. Just like we did with my father." Hiccup said softly, patting the dragon on the head, "Get some sleep, Toothless. We might have a long day ahead of us."

"Mmm," Toothless purred, curling tighter around Hiccup. What had he been so worried about, anyway? There was no way Sky was going to take his Hiccup away.

When the two awoke the next morning, Sky and Pixie were standing in front of them, watching them sleep. Naturally, Hiccup panicked, gasping like a fisho ut of water as he got to his feet all too suddenly, and, once again, fell forward. Thankfully, Sky was there to catch him and help him right himself. "What did I tell you about sneaking up on me?" Hiccup chided, shooting a glare at Sky.

"That Night Furies do it often," Sky recalled with a small smirk over at Toothless, who was now standing beside Hiccup, "I've spoken with Flamewing."

"What did he say?" Hiccup wondered a bit nervously.

"He said, 'I'm only considering this because you are my most trusted adviser, Sky. Very well, you and that young Pixie may go, but you are to report back to me in one moon's time.' Basically, we're the test subjects. If he likes what he hears, he'll consider coming himself. He did warn me, however, that if Pixie and I did not return, he would launch a full-scale attack on Berk."

Hiccup winced at this. Hopefully everyone would get along without any trouble. "Right..." He glanced down at Pixie, who's tail was lashing as she tried to contain her excitement. His face softened at the sight of her, and he scooped her up in his arms, "Won't you miss your mother, Pixie?"

Pixie shook her tiny head, "Not if I'm with Hiccup and Toothless!" She cheered, rubbing against him in a catlike fashion.

Hiccup glanced over his shoulder at Toothless, "What do you say, bud? Ready to go home?"

Toothless, who had been glaring at Sky, redirected his gaze to Hiccup, "That depends, are you well enough to fly, yet?"

"If I'm well enough to be hungry, I'm well enough to fly. I can't wait to get home and have some nice, tasteless mutton." He joked, sliding into the dragon's saddle. He placed Pixie up near the dragon's head so that, when he leaned forward to hold on properly, she was trapped between his arms, reducing the risk of her falling significantly. "Let's go, Toothless, Sky..." He glanced down at the tiny albino in his lap, "Koda."

Pixie blinked, "My name is Pixie," She corrected, sounding somewhat hurt.

Hiccup shrugged, "Pixie doesn't suit you. Pixie is the name of a weakling who gets in the way. You're not a Pixie. You're a Koda- a friend." Pixie- no, Koda, brightened at this. "Do you mind if I call you that?"

"Please do!" She chirped, curling against his chest happily.

It was nearly sunset when the group neared Berk, with Toothless in front of Sky to prevent the Vikings from panicking at the sight of a foreign dragon. Of course, when they landed, they were greeted warmly, starting with Astrid and Fishlegs. "Hiccup!" The moment the teen was off of Toothless' back, Astrid had his arms around him tight. Koda and Sky tensed at this, assuming it was an attack, but Toothless corrected them.

"It's called a hug. It's how humans show affection," He explained simply before introducing the pair to Meatlug and Stormfly.

"Hiccup, we were so worried!" Fishlegs interrupted, coming closer as the two lovebirds pulled apart.

Hiccup rubbed the back of his head, "You had no need to be, you know how I am with dragons..."

"But you were sick," Astrid countered.

"I'm fine now, see? The dragons took good care of me, and I learned an awful lot for the book of dragons. I even made a few new friends," He gestured to Sky, "This is Sky," He said, and, plucking the albino off of Toothless' back, he added, "And this is Koda."

Astrid blinked at the tiny thing in Hiccup's arms, "Is that... a baby Night Fury?"

"A baby and a runt," Hiccup corrected, "But looks can be deceiving. She's very bright, aren't you, Koda?" The youngling chirped proudly, cuddling against Hiccup. "I have a lot to tell you all, but it can wait till morning..." Glancing around he asked, "Where are Snotlout and the twins?"

Astrid's eyes narrowed, "Ugh," She placed a hand on Hiccup's shoulder comfortingly, "I don't know how you manage to put up with those idiots on a daily basis, Hiccup, I just don't know how you do it."

"With patience. And repetition. And reinforcement from Toothless when needed." Hiccup replied with a smirk, "Why, what did they get themselves into?"

"They went looking for treasure on the island where Gobber took us when we were looking for the Boneknapper. Snotlout started... Well, being Snotlout, so I left. Fishlegs- and all the dragons- followed me and Stormfly."

Hiccup smacked a hand to his forehead, "And how long ago was this?"

"Yesterday. I got back around this time last night." Astrid replied, looking rather bored.

Hiccup heaved a sigh, "Well, it takes over a week to starve, and they can drink snow if they get thirsty... I'm sure they'll be fine if we don't go after them until tomorrow." Astrid smiled a bit, seeming to agree with him. "Have some peace on Berk for just one more night."

Finally, Stoick approached them, "Son!" He greeted, moving to grab his son in a tight embrace. Hiccup, thinking fast, raised his arms above his head just before their bodies collided, holding Koda out of his father's bone-crushing embrace.

"Hi, dad," He managed when the man finally loosened his grip. "I'm home,"

"Welcome home," The chief boomed, patting Hiccup on the shoulder as the boy finally drew his arms back down, holding a rather spooked Koda to his chest. "Sorry, Koda," He whispered softly, stroking her head soothingly. "Koda, Sky, this is my father, Stoick the Vast. He's the chief- alpha... Of our tribe." He explained to the dragons patiently before turning to his father, "Dad, this is Sky, and the little one here is Koda. They wanted to see what life is like on Berk after I told a few stories."

"Well they're welcome guests!" Stoick boomed, looking the two dragons over. "We'll put Sky up in one of our spare stables, and Koda can stay with us if she likes. We don't have room for two adult Night Furies, but the little one should be fine."

Hiccup nodded, "Thank you." Glancing over his shoulder to Sky, he said, "We'll see you in the morning, then. I'm sure you're tired from the flight." The dragon grunted in response and allowed Stoick to lead him away. Turning his gaze to Toothless, he added, "You get some rest too, buddy. I'll be up in a bit." Toothless whined a bit, but eventually lumbered off to his place in Hiccup's room.

Astrid folded her arms over her chest, "You told them stories?"

"They had me in their nursery and all the little ones were watching me, I had to say something. They seemed to like stories." Hiccup said with a shrug, wondering faintly just how long he would be able to keep his secret secret. "Anyway, you guys go rest up. I expect you to come with me on tomorrow's search and rescue."

"Right. Goodnight, Hiccup." Astrid said softly, "And don't run off this time!"

"I'll do my best," Hiccup assured her with a chuckle as the group parted ways. Once in his room, Hiccup set Koda down beside Toothless, "Honestly, I turn my back on those three for a couple days and look what happens." He heaved a sigh and flopped down in bed, "Hopeless."

Toothless, who really was trying to sleep, didn't respond, but Koda did. She padded over to Hiccup's bed and hopped onto it, then onto his chest. "You really care about them, don't you?"

Hiccup smiled slightly, "Well, they're members of our tribe, our pack... Whether I like them or not, it's my job to look after them."

"Because you're going to be alpha one day?"

"No... Because I'm the only one with enough brains and compassion for the job." He chuckled and rubbed the youngling's head, "All they ever do is get themselves into trouble, then get confused when confronted with the challenge of getting out of it. If I don't save them, I'll feel guilty about it. Somebody's got to..." He yawned and closed his eyes before remembering something. "Koda, are you cold?"

"A little," She admitted lamely, looking away. Hiccup gently pushed her off of his chest, then, lying on his side, he pulled the blanket over both of them, curling around her.

"Better?" He asked gently.

"Much." She cooed, curling into his chest happily, feeling lucky to have found someone as generous and caring as Hiccup. She'd already decided, no matter what Flamewing said, she was never going to leave Hiccup's side.

* * *

More serious than the last, to be certain. xD I don't really have much to say... OH, Credit goes to HorseHat23 for the naming of Koda. I got a lot of wonderful suggestions, but in the end, Koda just... It just sounds right. It means "friend" in Sioux. Thank you to everyone who gave me ideas, though! I may use some of yours for other dragons, because, quite frankly, if the others come back as well, there are going to be a few more characters in need of names (like Koda's mom) SO, that being said, feel free to bombard me with more names.

I'm also planning on starting another HTTYD fic which would be a crossover between HTTYD and Dragonheart (props for ideas and introducing me to Dragonheart goes to White-Hunter). So... There you have it! Review please! And watch Dragonheart and Dragonheart: A New Beginning if you haven't already, because... It's good. Even the animation is pretty epic win for it's time. That said, I'm going to stop rambling.


	9. Woes of Pixies and Hiccups

Sorry for the delay on this one, yesterday was my birthday! I turned 21~ :D Not that I plan on actually doing any of the things associated with being 21, but, you know, still a big deal. If anyone wanted to make art of the story as a gift, I'd be thrilled. Particularly ones with Koda, she's just so cute~ And I'd be happy to share links on here with spaces in them) as well for others.

Anyway, enough of my begging! On with the story. Enjoy!

* * *

Come morning, Hiccup was surprised when he woke up on his own rather than to his Toothless alarm clock. Concerned, his eyes darted over to the dragon's bed, where he discovered that his room was much more crowded than he remembered it. Koda was still snoozing peacefully beside him, but Toothless was shouting something rather rude out the window. "Toothless, be nice!" Hiccup scolded, his voice startling both Toothless and Koda. Both dragons jumped at the same time, which would have been comical if Hiccup was not so concerned about his dragon.

"How can you tell he's saying something mean?" Astrid wondered aloud. She was sitting at the foot of Hiccup's bed- how she managed to get there without him noticing was completely beyond the boy, but whatever. In addition to Astrid, Fishlegs was also intruding upon his personal space, a rather rare thing for the teen.

Rather worried, Hiccup sat upright and blinked at the two, "What happened? Is something wrong?"

"That's what we came to ask you, actually," Astrid replied with a small smirk, "What did you see on that island?"

Hiccup rubbed his temples and glanced over at Toothless, who murmured, "And so it begins."

Heaving a sigh, he began, "Toothless kidnapped me." The dragon glared at him indignantly, but the boy carried on, "He wanted to show me the real Isle of Night."

Astrid seemed confused by this, "But why? I thought he was happy with you."

"He is!" Hiccup said a bit too quickly, "Just, he knew I was upset and wanted to cheer me up. I mean, I don't think Toothless wanted to go back there at all. That's why he was acting all weird the night before we left." He elaborated, "Toothless and I are... a lot more alike than I thought."

"Don't say any more," Toothless growled lowly, "You're digging your own grave."

Fishlegs, who had only heard the growl, wondered aloud, "What's gotten into Toothless?"

"He- he doesn't like to be reminded of his past, do ya bud?" He reached out to the dragon and ran a hand over his head, "I don't blame you." Toothless cooed in response, nuzzling into his hand.

Koda, who had not been informed of this whole "humans can't understand dragons" and "Hiccup is keeping it a secret for now" deal, asked snappily, "Why are you talking like you can't hear us, human?"

"He _can't_ hear us, Koda. Only Hiccup can, but it's a secret. Don't make him answer you." Toothless replied softly, looking from Koda to Fishlegs, "Large human males like to act as if they know everything, and get upset when they're not kept informed."

Hiccup had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing at this. It was true, really. Snotlout, Fishlegs, his father, even Gobber all had that in common. Unfortunately, Astrid also had a nasty habit of feeling entitled to information. "And how do you know about his past? It's not like he could tell you."

The boy did his best to keep a straight face, averting his gaze to look at Toothless rather than Astrid, "I just sort of figured some of it out. I'm sure I've only just scratched the surface, but..." He shook his head, recalling information he _could_ share with them without giving away his new secret, "But you know what's really interesting, Fishlegs," He addressed the Book of Dragons enthusiast now, "Night Furies keep the scales the hatchlings shed. The floor of the nursery is covered in several inches of them, so that when the young ones are learning to fly, the scales will break their fall! I discovered this firsthand when I fell down myself."

"Really?! How fascinating! I've never heard of anything like that!" Fishlegs squealed, moving in closer like a child at story time.

Hiccup nodded, "They live in a maze of tunnels, much like the ones the Whispering Death makes, only they're part of a natural cave system carved out of the said of a mountain-" He glanced up at the window they'd installed for Toothless to get in and out of, where Sky was now perched, eyeing him suspiciously, "Sky," He greeted, "Come on in, let's see how well-built the floor is." The dragon seemed hesitant at first, but eventually came to land between Toothless and Hiccup. That was probably not the best choice. Toothless lashed out suddenly, his teeth clamping down on Sky's tail. The sapphire dragon roared furiously and tried to throw Toothless off, and in a split second, Hiccup was on his feet. "Toothless, cut it out!" He scolded, grabbing the dragon by the shoulders and attempting to pull him away. Of course, he knew he stood no real chance, but he hoped the gesture would be enough to snap his dragon back to his senses. "We're supposed to make a good impression for Flamewing, remember? Quit picking fights!"

Toothless finally released Sky with a low growl, glaring at the other Night Fury as he settled back against Hiccup. "You're not the pet of the alpha around here, Sky, you'd do well to remember that."

"Toothless," Hiccup warned, a slight edge in his voice. The dragon glanced back at him and purred apologetically, rubbing against the teen.

"What was that?!" Fishlegs wondered aloud, voicing what both he and Astrid were thinking.

"It was almost like the three of you were having a conversation!" Astrid remarked, watching Hiccup's every move. "Hiccup... What's going on here?"

Hiccup heaved a sigh and shot a look at Toothless, "Your fault." He said pointedly before turning back to Astrid and Fishlegs, "Can you two keep a secret?" He asked, lowering his voice, "I don't want this getting out- don't even tell the other teens. Just between us, right?"

"Hiccup..." Toothless tried, but was completely ignored by the boy. Turning tail, he jumped out the skylight from which Sky had come and ran off.

Sky, looking rather pleased with himself, settled in to lick his wounds. This expression did not go unnoticed by one particularly observant young dragon, though she kept her mouth shut for the time being. "I don't know what happened. One minute, I was lying on the beach with Toothless in the middle of a meteor shower, and... Well, I made a wish on the shooting stars. Laugh if you want, but it actually _worked._ I can understand the dragons now, their language, I hear what they're saying the same as I can understand you."

"I don't believe you." Astrid deadpanned, folding her arms across her chest. "If that's true, what were those two fighting about just now?"

"Rank." Hiccup replied with a small sigh, "Toothless is feeling a little intimidated by Sky's presence because Sky holds a higher rank than him in their pack. He was saying that here, Toothless is alpha."

"Right... And who's Flamewing?" Astrid prodded.

Hiccup winced. This was probably going to come back and bite him in the ass. "Flamewing is the alpha of the Night Furies... And... Toothless' father. It's a sore subject, and he doesn't really want me talking about it."

"Just like you..." Astrid mused thoughtfully.

"Wait, so you can really talk to dragons?!" Fishlegs finally exploded, "Tell me more! What do they say? What does Meatlug say about me?"

"I haven't even had a chance to talk to Meatlug, Fishlegs, calm down!" Hiccup shouted, a bit more angrily than he'd intended. When silence fell over the room, he mumbled, "I'm sorry... This whole thing has me on edge. I don't like it when Toothless gets like this. He's being ridiculous."

Koda shifted uncomfortably, kneading the bed, "That's because he's a Pixie," She murmured, "Pixies always have self-esteem issues because of our rank in the pack. He can't help it, really."

Hiccup blinked down at the tiny dragoness for a moment before scooping her up in his arms, "I understand," He said softly, "But he should know better than to get that way with me."

The youngling shook her head, "It's _because_ it's you that he's so upset. He's really, really scared of losing you, more than you know." She whimpered and pushed her head against his chest, "I know because I don't want to lose you, either."

Hiccup heaved a sigh and stroked the young dragoness gently, "You're not going to lose me, silly..." A veil of silence fell between them, at which point he noticed Astrid and Fishlegs had their eyes on him, expecting a translation. He hesitated a moment before muttering, "Koda was just telling me that runts- like her and Toothless- have self-esteem issues because of the treatment they get among their pack members."

Astrid furrowed her brow, "That's horrible!"

"Is it?" Hiccup asked dryly, a vague reminder of the way she had treated him. "Seems to be a pretty common practice, if you ask me." He glanced down at the Night Fury in his arms and added, "I don't know that I can say this for all dragons, but... Vikings and Night Furies aren't all that different." With this said, he got to his feet, "I'm going to go find Toothless and track down Snotlout and the twins." He announced, brushing past the other teens.

"Shall I come?" Sky wondered, taking a step forward.

Hiccup glanced over his shoulder at the dragon and replied, "No, you stay here with Astrid and Fishlegs, get to know how life on Berk works." Astrid opened her mouth to protest, but the boy cut her off, "I need to spend some time with Toothless, no distractions. I'll bring Hookfang and Barf and Belch, but the rest of you stay here." When Koda whimpered softly, he amended, "You can come too, Koda."

Astrid eyed him warily, "A-are you sure? I mean, you don't know what kind of trouble they've gotten themselves into, and Toothless hasn't been himself lately, I'd be more comfortable if-"

"Astrid." Hiccup's voice was low and dangerous now, "You're not coming." With this, he stormed off, presumably to find Toothless, leaving Astrid, Fishlegs, and Sky to stare after him.

"What was that all about?" Fishlegs questioned, looking at Astrid.

"Whatever it was, I don't like that tone." Astrid decided before turning to Sky. "Alright then, I suppose we should start by showing you around the island. Meet us outside and we'll give you a tour."

Koda heaved a frustrated sigh, "I can't believe he ran off again. How are we supposed to find him? This island's way bigger than ours!"

Hiccup smiled a bit, "You just have to know where to look."

Koda raised her head, "Do you know where to look?" She wondered aloud.

"I have an idea," Hiccup admitted. It wasn't long before he was making his way down into the cove where he'd first met Toothless. Sure enough, the dragon lie perched on a rock in the shade, appearing to be asleep until the teen was standing just inches from him, at which point he opened one eye to look up at him. "You know, you shouldn't come here on your own. You'd be trapped if I hadn't found you." Hiccup pointed out.

"I knew you'd find me," Toothless murmured, "At least, if you looked for me."

Hiccup rolled his eyes, "Toothless, of course I'd come looking for you. You've got to get over this jealousy, nobody's taking your place, alright?" When the dragon seemed unconvinced, Hiccup brought his prosthetic leg into the dragon's line of sight, "We're a team." He repeated, tossing his friend a lopsided grin.

"About that." Koda murmured nervously, "Hiccup, I think you should keep an eye on Sky. He's up to no good." Hiccup raised a brow and glanced down at the dragon. "You were too distracted to notice, but... When Toothless left, he looked all proud of himself, like he'd made a major accomplishment by chasing him away."

"That's because he's trying to take Hiccup away from me," Toothless hissed, "Sky's always been that way, always out to take everything from me. He's a no good, greedy thief, and that's all he'll ever be." With this said, Toothless turned and began to stalk away.

Hiccup heaved a sigh and called after him, "Speaking of childhood rivalries, I told Astrid we'd go get Snotlout and the twins."

"Do we have to?" Toothless groaned, glancing back at Hiccup, "We could just forget about them a while longer, until Sky goes away."

"They will have gotten themselves killed by then." Hiccup replied dryly, mounting the dragon and placing Koda in the same position she'd been in before. "Come on, let's go get Hookfang, Barf, and Belch." With this, the dragon begrudgingly took off, only to land soon after when they spotted the dragons.

"Hookfang, Barf, Belch, let's go." Hiccup called to them, "I want to head out while we still have some daylight."

Hookfang groaned, "Do we really have to go after them right now? I was enjoying the peace."

"I know, I was too," Hiccup agreed, "But if we leave them to their own devices they'll only get themselves killed."

Three heads whipped around to stare at the boy. "You can... understand me, Hiccup?"

"Long story, but yes. Can we talk while we fly? I really want to get there before nightfall, we'll have a better chance of finding them." With this, the small flock took to the skies, and, as promised, Hiccup continued the conversation while they flew. "Snotlout, Ruff and Tuff can't know about this, alright? Astrid and Fishlegs already do, despite my better judgement, but don't make me give myself away in front of them, alright?"

Hookfang hummed in agreement, "As you wish."

"Hey, Toothless," Barf called out, "You'd better watch your back around that Sky."

"Yeah, he's something else," Belch agreed. "Ran into him this morning when he was still asleep, he was sleep talking, really creepy."

"Yeah, creepy," Barf agreed.

"What was he saying?" Toothless asked a bit impatiently.

"He kept saying he was going to kill Pixie, whatever that means." Barf announced, "I don't trust him."

Toothless glanced over his shoulder at Hiccup, "You see? I'm not making this up!"

"I never said you were," Hiccup murmured soothingly. "Did he say anything else?" He asked, glancing back at Barf and Belch.

"Uh... No, just kept repeating that. Why? You know this Pixie?" Belch wondered aloud.

"I know two." Hiccup gestured to Toothless and Koda, "We'll have to do something about that when we get back."

Toothless faltered, "Hiccup, Astrid could be in danger!" He pointed out.

"She can take care of herself." Hiccup said dryly, "Just keep flying."

* * *

Meanwhile, with our tour guides...

"And that's pretty much it!" Astrid announced, having shown Sky around pretty much the whole island from Stormfly's back, with Fishlegs and Meatlug in tow. Now just outside the dragon training arena, she slid off of Stormfly and said, "Since Hiccup's not here to teach us anything new, we aren't going to be doing any dragon training today, so Fishlegs and I are going to work on our hand-to-hand combat skills."

Fishlegs winced, "We- we are?!" He whimpered, hoping she would change her mind.

"Yep! You never know when you're going to be in a position where your dragon can't help you." When Meatlug still seemed hesitant, she added, "Or when your dragon needs you to fight on your own. Take me and Stormfly for example. The two of us were both captured by the Outcasts, separately. If I'd been stronger, I might've been able to get away to cut her free... You'd want to be able to do the same if it were Meatlug, right?"

"Of course I would!" Fishlegs replied defensively. He loved his dragon, and never wanted to see her get hurt. Realizing what she was trying to do, and that she was right, he heaved a sigh and dismounted Meatlug, "Alright, alright, I'm coming." He muttered begrudgingly.

Turning her attention to the dragons, Astrid said, "So, Stormfly, Meatlug, take good care of our guest, alright? Show him what life's like for the dragons of Berk." Stormfly trilled in response before leading Meatlug and Sky away.

Sky was rather annoyed by their blind obedience. "Why do you do as they say? You could kill them with one blow!"

"What good would that do us?" Meatlug wondered aloud.

"That's right. Those human take good care of us. Life on Berk is... Well, it's luxurious for dragons. We don't have to hunt for food or worry about attacks, just do a few small favors for the humans here and there and we're set. Besides, we're indebted to them after what Lord Hiccup and Master Toothless did." Stormfly agreed.

Playing dumb in order to test the little story, Sky asked, "What did they do?" Of course, he was taken aback by the thought of the dragons calling Hiccup "Lord" and Toothless "Master" of their own free will, but he didn't make mention of it. After all, he was trying to earn their trust and was trying to keep an open mind... But _Pixie?_

"They killed the Red Death," Stormfly replied, "And united our species on Berk. Master Toothless showed Lord Hiccup that the Red Death was controlling us, that we had to attack humans to get enough to feed her, and Lord Hiccup avenged us. Without him, we'd still be at war with the humans, and we'd still be under the Red Death's curse."

So their little story was true... Still, "But don't you ever wonder if they're just using you? Don't you ever think that maybe you're just pets to them?" The other two dragons laughed at the thought of this.

"Please, if we were their pets, we would all have our wings clipped as Master Toothless has, so that we could never fly alone." Meatlug pointed out, "They'd be too afraid we'd fly away."

"And they take from their own food stores to feed us," Stormfly agreed, "They don't make us hunt for ourselves. We help them, they help us. Just like any other community."

Sky eyed the two, considering this. Everything they were saying was true, but it still seemed so strange. Dragons and humans working as a team... But as he looked around the village, seeing dragons helping humans with menial daily tasks, and humans preening their dragons and feeding them with food taken off of their own plates... He even saw one human pull a splinter out of a Monstrous Nightmare's gums! Children and dragons, mostly Terrible Terrors and Hideous Zipplebacks, played together as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "What are Toothless and Hiccup to you, to this... Community?"

Stormfly took a moment to consider this, "Lord Hiccup is to be the alpha of the village when his father, the current alpha, passes. He is the alpha of the younger humans, our humans, but... They don't always have much respect for him. Master Toothless is the alpha of us dragons. He maintains order and tells us how to help when Lord Hiccup is incapable of doing so himself, or doesn't think of it on his own." Stormfly leaned in, looking Sky directly in the eyes, as she added, "We obey Master Toothless as an alpha because of his vast wisdom and status as Lord Hiccup's dragon, in addition to the fact that he's done the one thing that none of us ever could have done. Master Toothless was the one who kept us alive, even before peace came between humans and dragons, and we will _never_ let anyone cause him harm."


	10. Chiefing Skills

Hiccup, Toothless, Hookfang, and Barf and Belch hovered in the air above the island where, presumably, Snotlout and the twins were. Normally, they would have just landed and continued their search, but... "This place is ah... A lot more populated than I remember it." Hiccup commented. There were Vikings _everywhere_, building houses, fishing, talking... There hadn't been anyone there the last time.

"Maybe we made a wrong turn?" Hookfang tried, but Hiccup shook his head.

"No, this is the place. That giant rib cage over there is where the Boneknapper trapped us." He said, pointing to said giant bone structure.

"Maybe Snotlout did something incredibly stupid?" Toothless offered with a smirk, glancing over his shoulder at Hiccup.

With a lopsided grin, the boy replied, "No, Toothless, that's not a 'maybe.' Snotlout lives and breathes incredibly stupid things."

"Well, you're a Viking, they're Vikings, go talk to them!" Barf suggested eagerly, "If something goes wrong, we'll back you up."

Hiccup smacked his hand to his forehead, "Really, you two are almost _too_ well suited to Ruff and Tuff." He heaved a sigh and patted Toothless' shoulder, "Alright bud, let's go check it out," With a glance back to the other dragons, he added, "You come too." This said, the group descended onto an unpopulated patch of land and began moving in the general direction of the Vikings.

Spotting what could have been a small army of dragons, the viking that Astrid and Stormfly had set free the day before approached them. "Who are you?" The man demanded, though, because he knew how to handle dragons, he didn't pull any weapons on them.

"My name is Hiccup," The boy tried, "We're not looking for any trouble."

"What do you want with us?" The viking wondered with a commanding air about him.

Hiccup sighed, "We're trying to find my cousin and his friends, they're about my age, two of them look alike and fight a lot, the other's always getting horrible ideas that cause trouble for everyone around him... Sound familiar?"

"Ah, you mean Snotlout?" The man gave a hearty chuckle, "He's the one that thought to start a fire to set the others free! You see, we were all frozen for several years because-" Hookfang snorted in his face to silence him, not particularly interested in hearing this story... again.

"I'm sure he would do something like that." Hiccup mumbled under his breath, "Hey, uh, by any chance, could you tell me where I could find him?"

The viking waved another over and told him, "Bring the chief and the twins."

"Um, chief?" Hiccup didn't have much time to wonder, for soon after, Snotlout, Ruffnut and Tuffnet came forth donning new fur coats and various shiny objects that were probably supposed to look like jewelry.

"You called for me, Hans?" Snotlout greeted, looking to the Viking who bowed his head respectfully.

"This boy requested you, chief. He said he was your cousin."

Hiccup met Snotlout's gaze and heaved a sigh. "Typical Snotlout." Toothless jeered, nudging Hiccup playfully.

Realizing he should probably say something, he pointed the finger of shame and Snotlout and scolded, "I leave you alone for three days, _three days_ and you become chief of a tribe of frozen vikings!"

"Pretty impressive, huh?" Snotlout, clearly proud of himself, admired the rings that adorned his chubby fingers.

"Do you have any idea how badly this could have ended?" Hiccup continued, disregarding the other boy's pride, "It's one thing to pull stunts like this when I'm around to bail you out. It's entirely different when I don't even know what's happening!"

Snotlout rolled his eyes, "Um, hello? Do I look like I need saving?"

"Yes, actually, you do!" Hiccup raged, "You need to be saved from your own incredible ego! And you two-" He gestured to the twins, "Stop going along with his ideas just because you can't come up with anything original! You know all he ever does is get everyone involved into trouble! Next time, instead of playing along, why don't you try talking him out of it like everyone else! He doesn't need any encouragement, trust me!"

"He's really mad." Belch purred happily.

"Isn't it awesome?" Barf agreed. The two were silenced when Toothless shot a menacing glare (and warning shot) back at them.

Now rather annoyed with this conversation, Snotlout took a step forward, "Do you not know who I am? I am the chief of Frozen Valor, and you, sir, are trespassing!"

Hiccup jabbed his finger in the air while he fumbled to form a sentence. "You, you... Alright! You know what? Stay here, see if I care! We'll just go home and tell my father and Spitelout you're starting a rebellion, get the entire village of humans and dragons- including the new Night Fury friends I've made- to come here and blast you into Hel before you can even finish building your village, is that what you want?!" Snotlout quieted. "You have to the count of five to get on your dragons!" Before Hiccup could even begin his countdown, the teens scrambled for their dragons obediently. Satisfied, Hiccup turned to the viking that had approached him earlier, "I'm sorry about him, he doesn't know what he's doing, really, you're better off without him." With this said, he mounted Toothless and took off to follow the already retreating forms of Hookfang, Barf, and Belch.

"That was awesome!" Ruffnut cheered, "I've never seen Hiccup yell like that!"

"Yeah, he was so mad!" Tuffnut enthused.

Toothless playfully smacked Hiccup's cheek with his earplate, "Listen to the praise for the future chieftain. You should've brought Astrid and Fishlegs along to see this."

Hiccup heaved a sigh, "It's not like I _like_ being the bad guy," He mumbled, "I just don't know what else to do with him sometimes. He's like an unruly child that just can't resist playing with everything he's told to keep away from and nobody even bothers to scold him."

"But you feel the need to," Toothless pointed out.

"Well _somebody's_ got to take responsibility for him." Hiccup muttered.

Toothless flashed a grin over his shulder, "That's exactly why you'll make a great chief one day."

Hiccup smiled back slightly for a moment before a look of horror washed over his face. "If there's anything left to chief. Sky..."

"Yeah, I wouldn't worry so much about him." Koda murmured, curled up against Hiccup, "I mean, if he were plotting against the humans, he wouldn't have come up with an idea like that himself, it would have been an order from Flamewing, but I was there when he was talking to Flamewing about coming here and they never said anything like that. Flamewing's exact words were," She cleared her throat to mimic the elder dragon, "I'm only considering this because you are my most trusted adviser, Sky. Very well, you and that young Pixie may go, but you are to report back to me in one moon's time, but should you fail to return unharmed at that time, I will personally see to it that that island is obliterated." Then, as an afterthought, she added, "Maybe Sky was just having a bad dream?"

"Sky's always hated me," Toothless muttered sourly, "He's always been out for blood against me because I'm the son of the chief. You know, there was nothing wrong with the other eggs in my clutch, there should have been three magnificent, healthy dragons..." He lowered his voice a bit, "Mother always held onto those eggs in hope that they would one day hatch... Part of the reason she's so upset with me is because I knew that I was going to be banished that night, and I just... I had to know what had gone wrong, why my siblings hadn't hatched... So I cracked their eggs open, and..." He hesitated, "They'd been scorched. It was hardly noticable from the outside because the eggs of Night Furies are black, but inside... Inside there was nothing but charred remains. It's probably why I'm a runt, too, I'm sure whoever did it tried to get rid of me as well, but they must not have kept the heat on me long enough." Looking back at Koda and Hiccup, he said, "And I'm sure it was Sky."

Hiccup was taken aback by this accusation, "Sky?" He breathed, "Why would he do such a thing?"

"My father is from a small clutch as well, a clutch of two, and Sky is the only son of his only sister." Toothless explained, "In other words, had all of the eggs been destroyed, he would have been heir to the throne, and no one would ever have known the truth."

"It could just as easily have been his mother! Or his father! You don't know, Toothless!" Koda protested. She was raised to believe that Sky was the heir to the throne and was the most virtuous dragon of their clan because Toothless had been banished.

Toothless grunted, "You don't know the half of it, Koda. Sky wants to take everything from me, leave me with nothing, and he'll die before he changes his mind about that."

In an attempt to be soothing, Hiccup gently rubbed the back of Toothless' neck, "He'll never take everything from you, bud. Not while I'm around."

When the group returned to Berk, Hiccup was relieved to find it just as he had left it- peaceful, freezing, and full of Vikings. They came to land just outside the training arena, where Astrid and Fishlegs rushed out to greet them. "Well, how'd it go?" Astrid wondered as the teens slid off their Vikings.

"It was awesome!" Tuffnut cheered.

"Yeah, I've never seen Hiccup so angry!" Ruffnut high fived her brother, beaming.

Astrid looked to Hiccup, "Care to elaborate?"

Hiccup sighed, "Snotlout had the bright idea to melt the frozen vikings and become their chief."

"So?"

"So I... told him if he didn't come back with us I'd tell my dad he was starting a rebellion." Hiccup shot a look over at Snotlout before the other could protest, "Which is probably what I should have done anyway, but I knew Spitelout, my father, and Ruff and Tuff's parents wouldn't be too pleased with me. All you ever do is cause trouble, you never think about the consequences of your actions, and, inevitably, it become _my_ problem because I'm the only one around here that ever takes responsibility for anything you do!"

Ruffnut elbowed Astrid, "See? He's doing it again! Isn't it great?"

"You're in trouble, too!" Hiccup added with a glare at the twins. Finally, he turned back to Astrid and Fishlegs and asked, "Where are the dragons?"

"Last we saw they were headed to dinner," Fishlegs squeaked nervously.

A bit relieved at this, Hiccup calmed down some, "I need you all to keep an eye on your dragons. If they start acting funny, especially around Sky, let me know immediately."

Astrid furrowed her brow, "Why? Did something happen?"

"I just... We have to keep our guard up around Sky. There's a chance he's trying to... To do something bad." He averted his gaze, "just... keep an eye on him." With this said, he turned to leave, Toothless at his heels.

"You aren't thinking the other dragons are going to turn on us, are you?" Toothless wondered aloud, rather disturbed by his friend's behavior.

Hiccup shook his head, "No, I trust them, but I don't trust Sky. He might try to put ideas in their heads. Barf and Belch for sure are dumb enough to go along with them, the others would probably start to act strangely if they thought Sky was putting us in danger..." He stopped dead in his tracks and turned to face Toothless, who nearly bumped into the boy. "I'm just really worried about you, Toothless. If that really was him before..." He heaved a sigh, "Promise me you won't leave my sight until Sky goes home?"

"I'll try," Toothless assured him, and the two began moving again.

Koda, who had been on Toothless' neck the entire time, reared up and placed her paws on the elder dragon's head, "I just don't understand why Sky would do something like that!"

"Power, fame, more power..." Hiccup replied bluntly, "But there are things that Sky can never take away from you, Toothless. What you and I have done for the other dragons and humans of Berk, things like that won't just go away. Not in my eyes or my father's. He'll never lose sight of the fact that you saved me, Toothless, no matter what Sky does or tries to do, and you know I'll always have your back."

"Yeah..." Toothless muttered under his breath as they finally came upon Stormfly, Meatlug, and Sky.

"Toothless!" Stormfly greeted cheerfully.

Hiccup flinched at the sound of the new voice. "Right... That's going to take some getting used to." Sky, Stormmfly, and Meatlug approached Hiccup and Toothless, happy to see they'd made it back safely.

"What did Snotlout do now?" Stormfly wondered aloud, "Anything to do with those frozen Vikings?"

"He thawed them and became their chief." Hiccup deadpanned, "But I got the three of them back just fine."

Stormfly was surprised, "You can... understand me?"

"Long story, don't ask how, just know that he can." Toothless cut in, knowing that Hiccup felt awkward talking about his new ability.

"Right... Well, we just finished eating. There's still some left if you're hungry." Stormfly offered, nodding her head over to the giant bowl where the dragons were fed. Toothless and Koda made their way over to it, rather hungry from not having eaten.

Trying to give Sky the benefit of the doubt, Hiccup forced a smile and asked, "So, what do you think of Berk?"

"So far, it seems to be just as you described it," Sky admitted, "I'm impressed."

"Well, tomorrow's a new day. There are a few kids coming of age to be proper vikings now, so my dad asked me to take them into the academy, teach them about dragons and how to handle them. It should be interesting... I haven't even told the others about it yet. I think it'll be a nice surprise for them." Hiccup rambled, trying to find something to talk about.

"Oh? The children seem to handle themselves just fine around dragons as it is." Sky murmured.

Hiccup shrugged, "They know not to threaten them, but that's about it. They see dragons more as playmates than as true companions, and there are plenty of other things to learn. How to ride, dragon calls, the different types of dragons and their abilities... Fishlegs will have a blast." Toothless and Koda hobbled back to Hiccup, who promptly scooped Koda up in his arms. The young dragon yawned and curled against him with a contented purr.

"Oh, right. Your father was looking for you, Hiccup. He looked upset." Stormfly recalled.

The boy winced, "I forgot to tell him where I was going. Alright, I should go take care of that. We'll see you in the morning, then," He waved to the dragons and led Toothless home.

Stoick was already waiting for Hiccup inside, and the moment the door closed to signal his son's presence, he whirled around, "Hiccup!"

"Sorry, dad, I got kinda caught up in some things..." The teen began, "Apparently Snotlout led the other trainers on some crazy expedition for treasure yesterday and he and the twins wound up stranded on an island with a bunch of frozen vikings that he became chief of..." He stopped his rambling to heave a sigh, "So I went back to get them. I'm sorry I forgot to tell you."

At this, the chief's face softened, "That's my boy," He clapped Hiccup on the shoulder, "You'll make a fine chief one day."

Toothless nosed Hiccup's leg, "I told you."

"I'm not looking forward to it," Hiccup admitted, "But thanks, dad."

"Get some rest, son. Tomorrow's a big day for you and the academy." He reminded.

"Hopefully Snotlout, Ruff, and Tuff will behave themselves," Hiccup confirmed, land with this, he, Toothless, and Koda moved past him to Hiccup's room. Once inside, the boy set Koda down on his bed and lie down himself as Toothless did his usual nighttime ritual.

Once they were all settled in, Toothless asked, "Hiccup? Are you angry with Astrid?"

"I got that impression, too," Koda agreed softly.

Heaving a sigh, Hiccup considered this. Was he? "I'm upset. I don't know if mad is the right word for it." He replied eventually. There was an expectant silence for a moment before he continued, "Something she said earlier is bothering me. After you stormed off, Koda said that maybe part of the reason you were so upset is because of a Pixie's rank in the pack, that it's hard to have high self-esteem when everyone around you treats you like dirt. I translated that for Astrid and she agreed that it was horrible..."

"...But didn't stop to think about how you'd felt when she treated you the same." Toothless finished for him, "That's understandable, then." He rested his head on his paws, "They seem all too eager to forget about everything that happened before, so much so that I didn't even know the extent of it. I can see why you'd be upset..."

Koda glanced up at Hiccup, "You're really strong, you know? To be able to just go on as if nothing happened like that after the way they treated you."

"He is," Toothless agreed.

"I'm not strong," Hiccup tossed a lopsided smile to Toothless, "I just have really good friends to help me through the hard times."

* * *

How about that dark side of Hiccup? XD Hope you liked it! Also, I'm going to hold a competition! To any of you artistic people out there- this story still doesn't have a title cover. SO! I am asking you (as a birthday present) to pretty please make one for me~


	11. If Three's a Crowd---

Hiccup was relieved to awaken to the familiar pounding of Toothless jumping on his roof. A very panicked Koda was curled up against him, whimpering, "What is that?!"

"Alright, toothless, I'm up," Hiccup called out to his dragon, stroking Koda soothingly, "You're scaring Koda."

The dragon poked his head upsidedown through the window, "Sorry, Koda. It's just me. Hiccup takes too long to get up in the mornings if I don't do this."

"Sleeping in once in a while isn't a bad thing," Hiccup mumbled, holding Koda to his chest as he got to his feet. "Anyway, there's no time for flying this morning bud." Toothless' face fell, showing his utter disappointment. "Sorry, Toothless, but I have to lecture Snotlout and the twins before they fill the heads of children with idiocy. I'm going to get an early start on breakfast. Can you go make sure the others are up to do the same?"

Toothless brightened at this. He was being given a free pass to wreak havoc. "With pleasure!" He cooed before leaping off of the roof to go wake the other teens.

Hiccup smiled slightly to himself, "Looks like he's doing a little better today," He murmured, glancing down to Koda. With this said, he carried the young dragon outside and stood in the center of town to watch Toothless go from rooftop to rooftop, carelessly knocking shingles off as he played the part of a scaled alarm clock.

"I thought you said you were going to go to breakfast?" Koda wondered aloud.

"I will, just as soon as everyone's up. Toothless is incredibly thorough when it comes to waking people up, but I don't want to let him out of my sight. Not after what Barf and Belch said yesterday." Hiccup admitted, "Besides, if they see me, they'll come out to yell at me to control my dragon."

"You're still worried about that?" Koda asked, but before Hiccup could respond, Sky landed nearby and approached them, eyeing Toothless.

"What's that idiot doing?" Sky questioned, watching the phenomenon.

The boy smirked, "He's helping me wake up the other teens. Any chance he can find to torment Snotlout."

Finally, a mob of angered and groggy teens manifested from their homes and converged upon Hiccup. "Would you _please_ do something about your dragon?!" Snotlout complained, glaring at Hiccup.

"Sure. Good job, bud, looks like you got 'em all." Hiccup praised. Toothless retreated to Hiccup's side and purred, making a point of shoving Sky aside as he did so. "Now that you're all here, let's head to the Great Hall for some breakfast!" Hiccup suggested, turning to walk to the massive doors behind him when he was snagged by his collar. He glanced back to see an enraged Astrid glaring at him.

"You had your dragon jump on our roofs to wake us up for _breakfast?_" She demanded, her voice dripping with rage.

"Actually, I just asked him to wake you up. He chose the method." Hiccup replied. Astrid released his collar in favor of pinching and pulling his ear. "Ah ow ow ow okay! Okay, no, it wasn't for breakfast! We're having an early morning dragon training academy meeting- official business- that I would have told everyone at a normal hour yesterday if _someone_" He shot a look at Snotlout, "Hadn't decided to play chief for a day!"

Astrid seemed satisfied with this as she let go of Hiccup, instead turning her attention to Snotlout, who said defensively, "I'll have you know I wasn't just playing, and I made a fine chief."

Hiccup rolled his eyes and looked to Toothless. He opened his mouth to suggest he take Sky and Koda to get some food when he remembered that he shouldn't trust Sky to be alone with them. This was getting old fast. Thankfully, at that moment, the other dragons of Berk arrived, and he relaxed some. They wouldn't let Sky do anything to Toothless, and they had him severely outnumbered. "Alright," He muttered to himself, then, to Toothless, he said, "Why don't you take the other dragons down for breakfast and meet us in the arena?"

Toothless hesitated, but allowed Hiccup to gently set Koda on his head before leading the dragons off for some food as Hiccup and the other Vikings went in the opposite direction to get their own. Once everyone was seated with full plates, Astrid pressed, "Well? What's this important official meeting about?"

"Well," Hiccup fumbled under the pressure. "As you know, we're part of the Dragon Training _Academy._ Thing is, there aren't really any academics involved. Sometimes we learn new tricks, but that's about it. In the past, that arena was used to train children who were coming of age to fight dragons. That's no longer necessary."

"Are you done pointing out the obvious?" Snotlout snapped, still rather annoyed about his rude awakening.

"Right..." Hiccup straightened himself out, doing his best to look like a proper leader. "So, the Chief had the idea that we would use the Training Academy to teach those same children how to properly handle and ride dragons."

Tuffnut groaned, "I don't like where this is going."

"Starting _today_ we're going to have a bunch of preteens running around the arena, so I need all of you," His eyes snapped to Snotlout and the twins, "To behave yourselves and act like responsible adults." To Astrid and Fishlegs, he added, "We're going to start off easy. Fishlegs, you're in charge of the Book of Dragons, so I'm going to ask you to teach the kids about dragons from the book before we move on to introducing the dragons themselves. Can you do that?"

"Of course! I can teach them every last-"

"Astrid," Hiccup went on, silencing Fishlegs, "You and I are going to be in charge of keeping everyone in line and helping where needed. Snotlout, Ruff, and Tuff, you're going to be in charge of making sure nobody hurts themselves. It's a very simple task. Just make sure they don't fall off of the dragons or do anything incredibly stupid to annoy them. Another part of your job is silence."

"Umm, silence?" Ruffnut wondered.

"Yes. You are not to teach the kids _anything_. Nothing at all. Just keep your mouths shut and keep them from hurting themselves. If kids start using Terrible Terrors to torment their siblings, there will be repercussions!" He tried to sound intimidating, but, of course, his voice cracked the moment he tried to raise it.

Ruffnut heaved a sigh, "I don't like the Dragon Training Academy anymore. Can we do something else?"

"Yeah, like go back to that island with the frozen vikings?" Snotlout suggested.

"Don't you guys get it? This is really important! The things we teach these children today will be the foundation of the Academy's teachings for generations to come!" Fishlegs pointed out, "We're making history!"

Hiccup gave Fishlegs a look of appreciation, "Yes, thank you, Fishlegs, that's the kind of attitude we need."

This, at least, silenced the twins and Snotlout. Astrid, having a bit more appreciation for the situation, asked Hiccup, "Well do you have a lesson plan?"

"Um, lesson plan?" Hiccup fumbled.

"You know, like how Gobber had us start with the Gronckle and learning how to dodge before working our way up to the Monstrous nightmare." She elaborated. Had he not thought about this at all?

Hiccup shrugged, "I figured telling them about the dragons would be enough for now," He admitted, "But I'm throwing it wide open for suggestions."

"Oh, I have one!" Fishlegs piped up, "Why don't we do one dragon a day, since there's so much to cover, and we could introduce them to that specific type of dragon, show them what it does, teach them how to properly ride, let them get the feel of the dragons, you know? That way they won't get start looking for trouble since they'll be busy."

The boy considered this, "You know, that's a great idea, Fishlegs. Yeah, let's do that. It'll take a long time, and we'll have to go tame some new dragons like Changewing and Smothering Smokebreath, but it shouldn't be an issue, we can just save those for later, start out with what we know best- our own dragons."

Astrid nodded in agreement, "Starting with Toothless."

"Starting with-" He stopped himself when he realized what Astrid had said. "Astrid, no. We don't know enough about Night Furies to teach them-"

"Do we?" Astrid eyed him curiously, "After all, Toothless was the dragon that taught the teacher and brought peace between us. Shouldn't he be the first to be recognized?"

He hesitated, "I don't know..."

"Besides, we have Sky and Koda visiting now, right? We can show them different sizes and colorations." Fishlegs offered.

Hiccup sighed. That was exactly what he was worried about. Sky and children who didn't know how to handle dragons. Not to mention poor Koda would probably be terrified... But they should be included in this, to learn what life on Berk would be like, if this was the future of the island. Eventually, he nodded, "Alright, Toothless goes first then. Just make sure nobody touches Sky or Koda, I'm not sure how they'll do around so many people."

"Fair enough." Astrid said with a small smile before getting to her feet. The group had been picking at their food between talking, so their plates were more or less clean by then. "Ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be." Hiccup mumbled, and with this, the teens made their way to the training arena where Gobber and the dragons were already waiting. Hiccup raised a brow, "Gobber? What are you doing here?"

"Your father and I decided ya might need some help on your first day, so I volunteered, having taught about dragons before myself. Not under the same circumstances o' course... Gobber replied. Hiccup was both grateful and annoyed by this. It would be nice to have an extra set of hand and claw, and Gobber knew his way around dragons, but at the same time, he felt his father should have discussed this with him first. Not that discussion was one of Stoick's strong suits.

"Well, thanks, Gobber." Hiccup said, then shifted his gaze to Toothless, who was slowly approaching him with Koda. "Hey, bud! Busy day for you today."

Toothless eyed his human warily, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Thankfully, Hiccup could answer this question without coming off suspicious. "Fishlegs helped me come up with a lesson plan. We're going to teach about one to two dragons a day, depending on how many details we have on the subject, and have them show what they can do, let the kids get a sense of the dragon before moving on to the next. Astrid had the idea that you should be the first because you're the first dragon to make peace with a human, and since Sky and Koda are visiting, it'd be good to give them a chance to see the direction Berk is going in now."

"You think that's a good idea?" Toothless muttered dryly, not really expecting a response.

"So, that's the plan. The kids should be here soon, so... Um, the rest of the dragons should stay here and watch, see how it's done." There were groans of protest from the other dragons, but Hiccup effectively ignored them as he took Koda into his arms and began directing everyone to their positions as kids of various ages began to arrive.

"Hiccup, I thought you said preteens?" Snotlout challenged, pointing to Gustav, "He's not a preteen."

Gobber spoke up, "Yeah, about that. Stoick said that it would be good to start them younger so they know how to handle the dragons in the village. It's not like before where we could just send them inside during a raid, they're here all the time. Besides, it's not like doing that ever really worked anyway, did it, Hiccup?"

Hiccup shot Gobber a look, "And if I always did what I was told, we wouldn't be here today now would we?"

"So why should I listen to you?" Snotlout wondered.

Glancing over his shoulder at Hookfang, he gave the dragon a slight nod, at which the dragon spewed a short burst of flame in Snotlout's general direction. "That's why." Hiccup replied smugly, turning back to his cousin, who was now cowering and shouting at his dragon.

"Awesome!" Gustav cheered, scooting a little closer to Hiccup. Slowly but surely, all of the children between the ages of five and thirteen gathered around the Viking teens. Some were nervous, some eager to learn, others too busy fighting among themselves to really pay attention.

Astrid sidled up to Hiccup and elbowed him, "Just like looking at ourselves in the past, isn't it?"

"Unfortunately. I was hoping there'd be more of you, Fishlegs and I than Snotlout Ruff and Tuff." Hiccup mumbled under his breath before raising his arms to quiet everyone. When this didn't work, Toothless moved to the singular child causing the most ruckus and roared in his face. That shut everyone up pretty fast. "Thank you, Toothless." Hiccup said with a small sigh, "But we're not supposed to scare them to death."

"They're still breathing." Toothless protested, but retreated to Hiccup's side nonetheless.

"Alright, now that I have your attention," Hiccup tried again, "I'd like to welcome you all to the Dragon Training Academy. My name is Hiccup, as most of you probably already know, this is Astrid, Fishlegs, Ruffnut and Tuffnut, and Snotlout. I'll introduce the dragons as we get to them." Feeling the need to give a speech (and encouraged by a nod from Astrid to continue,) he struggled to find the words for the impromptu engagement, "Looking out at all of you I see a lot of familiar faces. Some of you look just as eager as Astrid was on the first day, others look like you're either about to faint or start crying. I've been there, trust me. Dragons can be scary and intimidating, but they're usually giant teddy bears on the inside. You just need to earn their trust and get to know them. Thing is, dragons are smart, and they can smell fear. If they sense that you're afraid of them, they might attack out of self-defense because they know that when you scare a Viking, Vikings tend to put up a fight, not run away. Usually. That's why we're going to start you out with dragons more familiar to you, that you may have seen around town. The Monstrous Nightmare, the Hideous Zippleback, the Thunderdrum, the Gronckle, the Terrible Terror, the Deadly Nadder, and, of course," He looked to Toothless as he finished, "The Night Fury."

Stepping forward, he continued, "Now, before we get started, I'm going to do a role call." He pulled out a list of names that his father had given him when he announced that Hiccup would be in charge of the children and began to read off names. "Uh, Sissel?" The youngest, a girl of about five, raised her hand shyly, her face hidden behind flowing blonde hair and a plush bunny. "Kylan?"

The boy beside Sissel, who appeared to be about seven, raised his hand, jumping nearly two feet in the air, "That's me!" He announced. He had the same blonde hair as Sissel, but several scrapes and bruises suggesting he was a bit of a troublemaker. "Sissy's my sister!"

"Uh-huh." Hiccup blinked and regarded the sheet in his hand again. "Right... Um, Roar?" A rather shy and small boy about six with jet black hair raised his hand hesitantly. "Davyn?" Another boisterous boy around twelve with auburn hair raised his hand enthusiastically. "Snotra?"

A girl around six that Hiccup might have mistaken for a boy had she not spoken up raised her hand and shouted, "Here!" She, too, had scrapes and bruises all over, and her black hair was cut short and uneven, probably something she'd tried to do herself.

"Dahlia?" A calm but still enthusiastic girl that reminded Hiccup of a younger (10-year-old) Astrid with flaming red hair raised her hand. "Roscoe?" A large and masculine eight year old boy raised his hand. "Rika?" Another rather battered looking girl of about nine raised her hand after brushing brown hair out of her eyes. "Aaand Rolf?" A boy about seven raised his hand enthusiastically. "I saw Gustav earlier, so I think that's everyone." Hiccup heaved a sigh and looked out at the crowd, "So, let's get started."

* * *

Short chapter is short. Bleah. Seemed like a good place to end it. I know it seems impossible for there to be only nine kids between 5 and 12 in the village, but... Cut me some slack here, I mean, really, that's a lot of characters to balance right there, especially for a fanfiction. I threw their ages and hair colors in there to give you an idea, but I'll go more in depth about them when they're being singled out. Right now they're just a mob of kids.

A side note, while I'm DYING to respond to your review, Guest A, I'm afraid I can't answer that because it would ruin things. x.x Sorreh. You'll just have to take my word when I say "You'll see~" in a high pitched and teasing voice.


	12. First Day of School

"The first type of dragon we're going to teach you about is the Night Fury. Up until recently, not much was known about them, and we still have a lot to learn, but I'll tell you what we do know." Hiccup rested a hand on Toothless' head as he continued, "Most of you have probably already seen Toothless around." There were nods and murmurs of confirmation from the children, who were, so far, rather well-behaved. "Toothless is a Night Fury. As is this little one in my arms here, Koda, and the blue dragon off to the side, Sky. These are all Night Furies."

Dahlia, the red head that so reminded Hiccup of Astrid, raised her hand, not waiting to be called on before asking, "Why do they all look different?"

"Well, that's a good question," Hiccup sat on the ground cross-legged, as the children already were, "All dragons are different. There are different colorations and different markings on them... But in this case, it's not just the colorations that are different. Koda here is still just a baby... Now, Sky is an average-sized Night Fury, though his color is a bit unusual. Most of them are shades of black and gray, like Toothless, but there are some exceptions, like Sky and Koda. Toothless is a bit smaller than most Night Furies, and Koda is for her age as well. They're considered 'runts,' or 'Pixies.'"

"Pixies? You're just making this stuff up as you go along!" Snotlout accused, earning a plasma blast to the dirt near his feet from Toothless as punishment.

"I learned a lot while I was on that island, Snotlout. Unlike you, I spent my time learning rather than causing trouble and eating things that are not to be eaten." Hiccup said dismissively, "Anyway, Night Furies are extremely rare because they only mate once in a lifetime, and have small clutches compared to other dragons. While Gronckles might lay twenty to forty eggs at a time, multiple times in their lives, Night furies only lay, on average, five eggs in their entire lives. They live on a special island, where there are no other dragons because Night Furies are extremely proud and generally wouldn't associate themselves with other dragons."

"So why did Toothless?" Dahlia pressed, acting more and more like Astrid by the second.

Smirking a bit at the resemblance, Hiccup explained, "Well, he's... Toothless isn't like other Night Furies. He saw things differently than the others, and got into a lot of trouble because of that, and was eventually banished from the island by his own father." Toothless growled a low warning, "I know, I know bud, educational purposes," Hiccup murmured, gently stroking the dragon's scales before continuing, "Night Furies and Vikings have a very similar social structure to ours. They all live in one pack, where there are two alphas, or "chiefs" as we call them. The alpha male and alpha female, who are mates. The finest son of the clutch of the alphas becomes alpha himself when his father's reign comes to an end. Toothless is the only son of the alphas."

There was a chuckle from Tuffnut, "That sounds familiar." Astrid hurled a rock at the boy's helm, rolling her eyes.

Sky snorted under his breath, "And some son he is."

This didn't go unnoticed By Hiccup, who reacted immediately, accidentally dropping Koda to the ground as he put his arms around Toothless neck to keep him from attacking, "Size isn't everything," He said, more to Sky than the children, "It's not about how proud, big, and strong you are. It's about how cunning, determined, and compassionate you are." Toothless calmed a bit, though he was still glaring at Sky, and Hiccup finally released the dragon, noticing that everyone's eyes were on him, questioning that sudden movement. "There was a bug." He excused lamely.

"More like something bugging us." Toothless corrected with a scowl at Sky.

"You sure it wasn't just your brain falling out of your head?" Snotlout teased, earning a bit of laughter from the crowd.

Unfortunately, Sky caught that remark from Toothless. "You got something to say?" The larger Night Fury challenged, getting to his feet.

"One thing about Night Furies is that they have are very expressive, moreso than most other species. For example, the pose Sky is demonstrating there is a challenge to a fight," Hiccup turned to Toothless who was already bracing himself to attack, and said, "Leave it, Toothless, it's not worth it."

"Hiccup, what's going on?" Astrid asked worriedly, as the dragons were now circling one another, the children the only barrier between them.

Thankfully, poor Koda who'd been all but forgotten, clawed her way up young Sissel's body, much to her brother's dismay, though he was a bit too scared to do anything about it, and perched herself upon the blonde's small head. "Both of you knock it off! This is a big day for Hiccup, stop ruining it for him!" This seemed to be enough to get through to Toothless, who slunk back to Hiccup's side, defeated, but Sky was still ready for a fight. "You too, Sky! Is this any way for a proper Night Fury to behave? You should be ashamed of yourself, making such crude insults and starting fights- don't forget you're a guest here!" She was suddenly plucked off of the girls head and placed in her lap, replacing the plush bunny that had been there previously. Noticing that she'd actually done quite a bit of damage scratching the girl, Koda raised her head and began licking the wounds.

"Eww, what's it doing?" Kylan, Sissel's brother, asked, eyeing Koda.

"Ah, the saliva of Night Furies has great healing properties. She's trying to make Sissel feel better." Hiccup explained.

"And what was she doing on Sissel's head in the first place?" Another child asked.

"Preventing a dragon fight. That's usually Toothless' job, but in this case, he was part of the fight, so..." Hiccup heaved a sigh, "When there are squabbles among the dragons, one will usually step in to break it up, just like we Vikings do, outside of battle or training. So thank you, Koda." He finished.

Koda shot a glare at Sky that clearly said 'this isn't over, don't do anything stupid' before allowing the small girl to forcefully hug her, as she usually would her bunny. "But why were they fighting?" Young Dahlia inquired.

"Well, like I said, Night Furies and Vikings aren't all that different," Hiccup explained, "Sky and Toothless are just like Snotlout and I. Sky and Snotlout are perhaps physically better suited to the position of chief and have the traditional ideals, but Toothless and I were born of slightly higher rank, and although our moral compasses might point in different directions from those of our parents, being a compassionate individual isn't something to be ashamed of. In fact it's something both Night Furies and vikings could do with a bit more of... And whether anyone here likes it or not," He looked from Sky to Snotlout before returning his gaze to the children, "Inside this, this..." He struggled for a moment, gesturing around himself before finally finding the word, "-Academy, I'm in charge. That means what I say goes, and Toothless, don't you dare start getting smug about this, you're in trouble, too." Toothless, who had been looking rather proud moments before, deflated again and blinked at Hiccup apologetically. "Sky was in the wrong, but you can't let him get the better of you, because in the end, _you're_ the one that lives here and will have to deal with the consequences, not him. He can just leave with no skin off his nose... Plus, he can summon a herd of angry Night Furies, and nobody wants to see how that ends."

"Actually-" Tuffnut began, but was elbowed by his sister.

"Be quiet, will you? Hiccup's being cool again!" Ruffnut chided.

Snotlout rolled his eyes, "Coolness is a matter of opinion."

"The fire on your pants is a matter of fact." Hiccup countered with a smirk.

Snotlout's eyes widened as he examined his pants. "There's no-" As he turned to look at his behind, a fire suddenly erupted on his ample bottom, courtesy of... Well, Stormfly, after she bypassed the debate between Hookfang, Barf, and Belch about who would get to do it. "Gyah! Bad Stormfly! Bad!" He ran to a conveniently placed barrel of water and plopped his bottom down in it, getting stuck in the process.

Turning away from the highly amusing scene of Snotlout trying to get himself out of the barrel while shouting "This isn't funny, get me out!" Hiccup continued, "But that goes both ways. Sky, if this continues, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. Please don't make me say it again."

"You heard him," Stormfly supplied, "Next time, it won't be a warning. I've said it before and I'll say it again: We will _never_ let anyone cause Toothless harm. Especially not over some ridiculous rivalry over something that doesn't even apply here!" The other dragons had stopped their bickering to glare daggers at Sky, showing their support for what Stormfly was saying.

"This doesn't concern you!" The sapphire Night Fury growled.

"Sky," Hiccup said in a low, warning manner that was eerily calm.

When silence and relative peace was restored to the arena, Dahlia asked, "Are you done teaching us?"

"No, I'm sorry, where was I..." Hiccup rubbed his temples, trying to calm himself. Of course, hearing what Stormfly had to say made him feel a bit better, but still... If this was how it was going to be the entire time Sky was here, maybe it would be better to just forget about the other Night Furies altogether like Toothless wanted in the first place. "Ah... Night Furies... Right, they have a social system similar to ours, where runts like Toothless and Koda are at the bottom."

"But you said Toothless is above Sky." Gustav pointed out softly.

"Right, but Toothless is the alpha's son, so they cut him some slack. At least until he was banished. Anyway, enough about that, um... They live in a system of natural tunnels, and the floor of their nursery is coated with shed scales that help break the fall for the young ones who are learning to fly... Oh, and they have a special and admittedly really weird ability to see with sounds. They send out this weird noise that bounces back to them and they can somehow see using the sounds. Their fire is also unique, sometimes they do what's called a plasma blast-" Toothless demonstrated by shooting the barrel that Snotlout was in, exploding it out from under him. "Thank you, Toothless," Hiccup murmured appreciatively, "Or they can hold their fire," Again, Toothless demonstrated, this time using it to heat the ground in a circle before curling up on it to take a nap, just like he always did with his bed at home, "Like that. Their flames are always that shade of blueish purple, and as far as we know, Night Furies are the only dragons that can unleash an unlimited number of shots without a rest period."

Unfortunately for Toothless, Hiccup had other plans in mind for him. Scooting closer to his dragon, Hiccup lifted Toothless' tail to show the fins to the crowd, "A dragon's fins, wings, and tail are extremely important to their survival. Without them, they'd be unable to fly, and, as a wise man once told me," He cleared his throat, and, in the best imitation of Gobber he could manage, said, "A downed dragon is a dead dragon." He then shot a look of appreciation to his former instructor, who smiled and gave him a thumbs up. Ignoring Toothless' complaints and half-hearted attempts to shake Hiccup free of his tail, the boy only held tighter as he looked back to the class, "I'm sure by now most of you have heard the story about Toothless and I facing off against the Red Death, but how many of you know how we met?" When none of the children responded, Hiccup told the tale of Toothless' tail and how they had become friends and discovered the Red Death.

"Why didn't you kill him?" Kylan asked.

"Why does everyone ask me that?" Hiccup wondered aloud, "Because I just... I looked at him, and... I saw myself. I still do." He smiled as he finally let go of the dragon's tail, "Normally, at this time, we'd have you try to get the feel of the dragon, try to get on it's back and ride him, but Toothless is a special case because of his tail controls... Koda, I don't know if she can fly yet herself, and Sky is just a visitor here. Besides, you'll probably never get the chance to ride a Night Fury again, anyway, so we'll start those lessons tomorrow with the Gronckle. Other than that, there's... really not much to tell. We don't know all that much about Night Furies yet... So, does anyone have any questions?"

Sissel raised her hand and asked in a voice so soft and delicate with childlike innocence that Hiccup almost wondered if she was _too_ young for this. "Can I keep it?" She asked, glancing between Hiccup and Koda, who was still pinned against the girl's chest.

"Save me." Koda squeaked.

Hiccup smacked a hand to his forehead, "No, I'm sorry... She's just a baby, she needs a grown up dragon to look out for her, like Toothless,"

Sissel was visibly disappointed, but let go of Koda anyway, and the young dragon raced back to Hiccup's feet and wasted no time in scaling his body to his shoulder, where she cowered against his neck. "She's stronger than she looks." Koda whimpered.

Hiccup lifted Koda off his shoulder and into his arms, "If that's all, go on ahead home, we'll meet back here tomorrow, same time, same place." The children began filing out, and Hiccup turned his attention to the dragons and teens, "You all can go, too. I just need to clean up the mess Snotlout's butt made."

"Hey, that was _your_ dragon's fault!" Snotlout accused.

"What, Toothless? Nah, he was just trying to help, weren't you, bud?" Hiccup asked sarcastically.

"Yeah, something like that," Toothless jeered, giving up on sleep entirely for the time being.

Snotlout seemed unconvinced, but stalked off regardless, his striped knickers now showing through the back of his pants where they'd been singed. The majority of the group followed suit until only Sky, Koda, Toothless, Hiccup, Astrid, and Fishlegs remained. Hiccup pretended not to notice as he began gathering the bits of wood that were scattered about. "Good work today, Hiccup," Gobber encouraged, "Keep it up, and remember, you'll be chief of these kids some day." With this, the man hobbled off.

"Yeah, can't wait," Hiccup grumbled to Toothless, who was helping by carrying Koda and allowing Hiccup to put the debris in his saddle.

"Hiccup," Astrid began, her voice on edge, "What are you not telling us?"

Hiccup heaved a sigh and straightened, finally turning to face them, "You ever get the feeling you look too closely at things, Astrid?" He challenged, not particularly wanting to explain what all was going on with Sky and Toothless in front of said dragons.

"When you're involved, there's always more than what meets the eye." Astrid replied with an innocent smile, "Come on, we can't help you if we don't know what's going on."

"Don't." Toothless warned.

Hiccup sighed and bent down to scoop up another chunk of wood, pausing while his head was Near Toothless' to whisper, "It's got to come out at some time or another, Toothless. Do you want to be unprepared when Sky comes at us with an army of Night Furies or do you want to stand a chance by letting them in a little. It's just Astrid and Fishlegs, I won't tell anyone else, I promise."

"_You're_ not the blabbermouth I'm worried about." Toothless muttered, flashing his eyes to Fishlegs. "Don't let them tell anyone else. I don't want the other dragons to know." With this said, he turned tail, and, with a few sharp words to Sky, led the other off to have lunch with the other dragons. Thankfully, Stormfly and Meatlug were waiting at the gates, as they'd been expecting their riders to follow, but when Toothless, Sky, and Koda came out, they followed them instead.

Straightening and moving to the other teens, Hiccup glanced over his shoulder to make sure Sky was really gone before returning his gaze to them and lowering his voice, "Toothless really doesn't want me talking about this, but I have to tell someone... Just... Don't tell anyone else, especially not your dragons. For some reason, he doesn't want them to know. Pride, probably."

"What happened?" Atrid pressed, edging a bit closer to drink in all the details of whatever deep, dark, secret Hiccup was about to spill.

"Could be nothing. Could be everything." Hiccup fumbled, "Dangerous? Oh yes, lots of danger."

"Hiccup!" Astrid commanded, snapping him to attention, "Does this have something to do with what you said yesterday? To keep an eye on our dragons?"

"Yes! Actually, it has everything to do with that." Hiccup heaved a sigh to calm himself, "Well, when we were going to get Dumb, Dumb, and Dumbest, Barf and Belch started talking, saying they overheard Sky talking in his sleep, saying he was going to kill Pixie." Astrid and Fishlegs stared at him blankly. "Did you listen to me at all? Pixie is what they name their runts, he could be talking about Toothless or Koda, and Toothless has a strong feeling it's him!"

Fishlegs raised a brow, "Are you sure he wasn't just having a bad dream? Maybe it was heard out of context?"

"Yeah, that's what Koda said at first, but on the way back, we were flying a little ways away from the others so they wouldn't hear us, and Toothless... Toothless said something that's had me on edge ever since. Apparently, it was no accident that Toothless is a runt, or that he's the only survivor of the alpha's clutch. There were three eggs in his clutch, and of those three, he was the only one to hatch. Sky's always hated him, been out for blood against him. I used the example of Snotlout and I, but even I know Snotlout wouldn't really do anything to get me killed. Not on purpose, anyway. But apparently his relationship was Sky was always darker than that from the day he hatched, maybe even before..." Hiccup inhaled again, trying his best to slow down and make sense to the two.

"What do you mean before he hatched?" Astrid wondered, confused.

"Well, long after Toothless hatched, his mother kept the eggs close, as if willing them to hatch would make it so... But on the night toothless was banished- which, he knew was going to happen- he went to the eggs and cracked them open. Inside was nothing but charred remains. Not rotten, _charred._ Night Fury eggs are black, so burns wouldn't be visible on the outside. It wasn't that the alphas were infertile, it was attempted murder. One of the other Night Furies must have gone in there and cooked the eggs from the outside, it probably happened to Toothless' egg, too, but there was still enough for him to survive, meaning whoever tried to kill him didn't heat his egg long enough." Hiccup's eyes darted around again, making sure none of the other dragons were near, "And Toothless is positive that Sky's the one who did it, because of his position. Sky is the son of Toothless' father's only sister. In other words, he'd be next in line for alpha if Toothless weren't around. Of course, he is now that Toothless has been banished, but since I'm trying to make peace with the other Night Furies, that old hierarchy might come back into play. Sky had the most to gain from torching those eggs, and he's close enough to Toothless' parents that he might have been able to sneak in and do it." Hiccup heaved a sigh, "And the closeness between Sky and the alphas is even more concerning, because if he turns around and tells the alphas we're no good- or if he fails to return to the Isle of Night by the end of the month, the Night Furies will wage an all-out war on Berk."

Astrid's jaw dropped, "And you _agreed_ to this?!"

"I didn't know how deep their rivalry went before, Astrid!" Hiccup pointed out, "There's nothing we can do about it now. Just make the best impression we can and hope everything works out alright... and keep a close watch on him and Toothless... So I'm going to do that, if you're satisfied with this explanation." When neither Astrid nor Fishlegs protested, Hiccup turned and ran out of the arena to go find Toothless, Sky, and Koda.

* * *

A few things... For one, I'm sorry that took so long, but more importantly... AlexJohnD said in a review "Whoa whoa whoa, your going to reference all of those kids in the future!? That IS a lot of characters! Good luck with that..." It goes on, but this is the part I'm referencing here, yes, there are a lot of kids, and I'll be giving them all little roles to play. For example, I plan on having all of the teens take a liking to one child or another, form that beautiful teacher-pupil bond like Hiccup and Gobber had. The rest I have other things in mind for... So yeah, they will be referenced, but it will be like, in one-on-one basis scenarios for the most part... if that makes sense.

Anyway, thank you, and please read responsibly! (by reviewing)


	13. A Fair Fight

By the time Hiccup caught up with the dragons, they were just about finished eating, Toothless and Hookfang caught in a debate about which was worse: the texture or taste of eel. Seeing that everything seemed to be normal enough, the boy heaved a sigh of relief, which attracted the attention of the dragons... Unfortunately, Sky and Toothless, who had been, for reasons unknown, standing side by side with their backs to Hiccup, turned to look at the same time. Sky turned right as Toothless turned left, and their heads collided. "Watch where you're shoving that useless head of yours!" Sky growled under his breath. He'd heard that humans were hard of hearing, and assumed that if he spoke softly enough, Hiccup wouldn't hear him.

Unfortunately for Sky, Hiccup's hearing, while not nearly as sensitive as a Night Fury's, was still good enough to hear that, and Toothless knew it. Rather than argue, though he desperately wanted to, the younger dragon recalled the conversations earlier and simply pulled away, walking to Hiccup's side and nuzzling him in greeting. "Hey, buddy," Hiccup grinned proudly and scratched the back of Toothless' head, making a mental note to reward him when they were away from Sky, who was now mimicking Toothless' greeting of Hiccup. "Hey... Sky," Hiccup fumbled awkwardly. What do you do when someone you suspect is trying, and has tried in the past, to kill your best friend is nuzzling against you affectionately?

Just as quickly as the fleeting moment of pride had come, it passed, as apparently this was too much for Toothless, who lunged for Sky's neck without hesitation. If Sky hadn't been expecting this, he may well have been killed in that instant, but he managed to hop out of the way in an almost playful fashion. "Toothless!" Hiccup complained, reaching out to rest a hand on the Night Fury's shoulder.

"Stay out of this." Toothless growled lowly, not sparing so much as a glance back at Hiccup as he and Sky began to circle one another.

"Toothless?" Stormfly ventured, taking a step closer, as did Hookfang, ready to move into action.

"All of you stay out of it! This is personal! Just... Get lost! Go be with your humans!" Toothless demanded, shocking not only the other dragons, but Hiccup as well. Still, Stormfly lowered her head in submission and lead the others away from the scene.

Hiccup, ignoring the very clear signals that Toothless was sending, took another step closer, "It's not a fair fight without-"

"It was never a fair fight!" Toothless spat, "You were always bigger and stronger. You were always the ideal Night Fury, doing your best to please my parents, to the point it was sickening to watch, but they weren't enough for you, were they?! No, you won't be satisfied until you've taken everything from me!" It was a bit unclear at first whether Toothless was addressing Sky or Hiccup, but as he continued, it became more and more apparent that Sky was the intended target. "Back then I would've rolled over and taken it, too! I would've been fine letting you walk all over me because it made my parents happy, but you know what? Not anymore! You don't have to kill Pixie, Sky, because Pixie's long been dead... But Toothless won't stand back and let you trample him!"

Hiccup glanced over his shoulder worriedly, contemplating running for help, when Koda began climbing up his leg. He bent down and scooped her into his arms as she said, "Don't waste your time calling for help. Anyone who gets between them now is only going to get caught in the crossfire. They always try to shield hatchlings from dragon fights back home... But I was always too short to be protected by mother's wings. I've seen all kinds of battles, Hiccup, this... is to the death."

"I can't let that happen," Hiccup muttered, determined, "I have to do something!"

"You'll get yourself killed!" Koda protested, "Just stay out of it!"

"It's not a fair fight!" The boy repeated, and apparently Toothless heard him, because the dragon lunged for Sky suddenly, missing the mark of the beast's neck terribly.

Sky chuckled, "You're right, you're too dumb to- AAAUGH!" He suddenly unleashed an ear-piecing screech, and it took Hiccup a moment to see why. When Toothless had landed, he landed nose-to-tail with Sky. Toothless had chomped down on Sky's right tailfin, held it down with one paw, and torn off the fin.

Holding his prize as he rolled away from Sky before getting to his feet, Toothless looked positively elated. He was having _fun_ with this. "Toothless, stop it!" Hiccup commanded, but his words were lost on the Night Fury who was so lost in rage, bloodlust, and thirst for vengeance that he couldn't even see Hiccup. All he saw was Sky. He spat the leathery and now useless appendage out of his mouth as if it tasted most foul. "Is the fight fair enough for you now?" He growled, a hint of amusement in his tone as he stepped closer to Sky, who was petrified by this point. "That's right, just stand still and make this easy," Toothless purred, crouching low to get a good angle on his target, when suddenly, a booming roar shook him out of his bloodthirsty state. Blinking, he looked to see who had dared to interrupt. It was Thornado and Stoick, who didn't look too pleased. Toothless quickly retreated behind Hiccup, knowing full well what the man (and dragon) were capable of.

Relief flooded over Hiccup, "Dad!" He ran to the man as he landed and dismounted Thornado. "How did you-"

Stoick held up a hand to silence his son, "Sky, you have overstayed your welcome. It's time for you to go home now." He demanded, then noticed that the dragon was licking his tail... where a fin should have been. "What's happened here?"

"Sky and Toothless got in a fight..." Hiccup muttered, "Things got a little out of hand."

"I can see that." Stoick grunted. By now, other spectators were flooding in, having heard Sky's shrieking.

A very confused and distraught Hiccup turned and fled the scene, not even caring where his feet carried him. He just wanted to get away. Things couldn't possibly be any worse, really, they couldn't... And it was all his fault. If only he'd listened to Toothless all those times he tried to warn him away from that island, they'd be living peacefully right now, enjoying a nice flight around Berk, but no. He'd gone and ruined everything, and now, the entire village was in danger. He was so focused on running that he'd forgotten that Koda was still in his arms until she said, "Sky can't go back home."

Hiccup was so surprised by the sudden sound of her voice that he stopped running and looked around himself. He'd apparently subconsciously decided that the cove where he'd first met Toothless was the place to be. "Yes he can. I can make him a new tail fin, an automatic one like I made Toothless, and he can-"

"That's not what I meant." Koda murmured, "Even if you did that, they still wouldn't accept him. A downed dragon is a dead dragon. That law is absolute for Night Furies. If he went back, they'd kill him to put him out of his misery."

The teen sat down, panting a bit, "Even though he could fly on his own?"

"It's not a real tail fin. It's not made of dragon hide. It can burn or break off, they wouldn't risk it." The youngling said quietly, "He can't go back."

Slamming his head back on the rock he sat against, Hiccup grumbled, "Why? Why, why, why? Why did it have to come to this? Gods, I'm so stupid! I'm so-"

"Found you!" A sobering voice announced. Raising his head, he saw Astrid and Toothless standing side by side. "I had a feeling you'd be here." Astrid said softly. "You should really go back. Stoick is doing his best to round up troops and make battle tactics, but you know dragons better than he does, so..."

There was a long, awkward silence before Hiccup mumbled, "I thought I knew dragons. I thought I could understand them, but when it mattered most, I couldn't listen, and now look where it's got us!"

Toothless stepped forward and attempted to nuzzled Hiccup, but the boy flinched away from him. "Hiccup, I'm sorry, I... I don't know what came over me." The dragon whimpered.

Hiccup, apparently ignoring Astrid, said, "I have to go back to the Isle of Night before the month is over. I have to tell Flamewing what happened."

"And if he doesn't believe you?" Astrid challenged.

The boy hesitated, "Then I'll... I'll... I don't know. He'll probably kill me." He admitted, "I'll try to figure something out." Then, with a deep sigh, he looked to Toothless and muttered, "I know, Toothless. It wasn't your fault. Sky wasn't acting right, and it's not fair of me to be mad at you, just... I don't know what to do. Ever since I found those forged notes life has just been spiraling out of control and I just want it to be over!"

"I do, too," Toothless agreed softly, seeming to understand Hiccup's frustration.

Astrid knelt down before Hiccup and placed a hand on his shoulder, "We'll get through this. We found a way to turn an island full of dragon slayers into an island full of dragon lovers, we can find a way to turn an island full of human haters into an island full of human... toleraters, at least."

"Yeah, I hope so," Hiccup muttered, not wanting to upset her by telling her that, having met said human haters, there was no way that was going to happen... But it happened on Berk. "We'll need a miracle like the Red Death. A common enemy."

"What better enemy than the one that killed the alpha's clutch?" Astrid provided.

Toothless shook his head, "There's no proof. I can prove that they were torched, but not who did it."

"Maybe you won't have to, if we're lucky," Hiccup murmured, an idea slowly beginning to form.

"Won't have to what?" Astrid wondered aloud. When she recieved no response but was instead pushed away by Hiccup, who got to his feet and started making his way back to the village, she called after him. "...Hiccup?" Still nothing. Giving up for the time being, both the girl and Toothless followed Hiccup and Koda back to the village.

* * *

This chapter is almost depressing it's so short. I'm sorry. I'm kind of going through a slump right now. Writing so much I'm almost sick of it, and I've been depressed because life just keeps getting worse and I'm lonely. But if you wanted to nag me/talk to me/give me ideas, feel free to add me on Skype (just say who you are) Skype name is bakanekofan. I'm on there quite a bit, and usually when I'm on Skype, I could be writing. Promise I won't get mad if you nag me, it's deserved and needed. xD Anyway, like I said, sorry for the short and crappiness, I'm just... Yeah. Bleah.


	14. A Plan

Much to Toothless' dismay, Hiccup made a beeline for the stables, where he was certain Sky would be, licking his wounds, and, sure enough, there he was. "Sky," Hiccup knelt down beside the dragon, who glared over his shoulder at Toothless. "Yeah, yeah, I know, you and Toothless don't like each other, but listen-"

"He tore my tailfin off," Sky interjected dryly, "I can't fly because of that monster!"

Hiccup heaved a sigh. Toothless could hardly be classified as a monster in his book. If anything, Sky had it coming, but that wasn't important now. "Toothless, can you wait outside, please?" He asked, looking back at his Night Fury apologetically. Toothless snorted in disgust, but obeyed nonetheless. "I can help you fly again," Hiccup said finally when Toothless had gone.

Sky seemed rather wounded by this, "You think I want to go through life needing a human like that pathetic-"

"Rephrase: I can make it so you can fly again even without a rider." Hiccup corrected, "I've done it before, with Toothless, he just prefers to have me with him. I have a design for an automatic tailfin that moves with the natural one. I'll need to take measurements and it'll take a few hours to build, but I can do it."

The proud dragon didn't seem too interested, "It wouldn't matter. The other Night Furies would only kill me if they saw me like this."

"Right," Hiccup agreed, "Because they'd be worried that it might break off or burn off, but, I have an idea, a proposition for Flamewing that might change his views on his 'only the strongest may survive attitude.'"

Astrid folded her arms suspiciously, "And how do you propose to do that?" Though she was only understanding Hiccup's half of the conversation, she was able to catch the gist of what Sky was thinking in context. "This Flamewing is Toothless' father, right? The one that disowned and banished him? How do you think you're going to be able to get through to him?"

"The same way I got through to my father." Hiccup replied grimly, "Something stupid and crazy. Something that proves once and for all that dragons and humans aren't enemies. A battle against a common enemy."

"And who would that be?" Astrid pressed.

Hiccup glanced over his shoulder at her and deadpanned, "Alvin."

Her jaw nearly hit the floor, "You can't be serious. Alvin?! That's... That's suicide! We don't even know if he's still alive!"

"But we know his dragons are no longer on his side," Hiccup said pointedly, "So if, say, a handful of Night Furies were to suddenly attack them for 'revenge,' their dragons wouldn't defend them."

"I don't see where you're going with this." Sky mumbled, "There's no way you're going to be able to convince-"

"The thing that always made us so anxious about Night Furies was the fact that they were mysterious. We didn't know what they looked like, or how many of them there were. They could attack from long range and never missed their targets, and they never ran out of shots." Hiccup continued, getting to his feet, "If Alvin and the Outcasts were attacked my Night Furies, _just_ Night Furies, they would assume they were being attacked by the pack for vengeance. In truth, it would just be Sky and Toothless, but they don't need to know that."

Astrid's eyes narrowed, "So you're going to get the Outcasts to attack the Night Furies who will then attack us? So we're the common enemy?"

"That last part is wrong. No, the Outcasts will prepare to attack the Night Furies, but I can get ears on the inside. That Monstrous Nightmare we brought back with us, we could send him back with the Outcasts to keep an eye on them, and have him come back to tell us what's going on. Because I can understand dragons now, I can get a detailed outline from him, their battle plan, and we'll follow them to the Isle of Night, lie in wait, let them start their attack, then, at the height of chaos, swoop in and save the day." Hiccup explained.

"That's quite clearly staged. Flamewing won't bite that." Sky pointed out.

Hiccup shook his head, "We'll tell Flamewing that we'd followed the Outcasts and knew their plan all along, we were waiting for the right moment to strike."

"What if the Outcasts say something to implicate the fact that they were attacked?" Astrid wondered.

"We'll say there was a miscommunication the night they were attacked and that we were initially going to attack them then, but changed our minds at the last minute, and Sky and Toothless didn't get the memo because they were too busy fighting." Hiccup shrugged, "It's believable enough, given the circumstances."

Sky growled a bit, "What's in it for me? Why should I lie to the faces of my pack members?"

"Because they'll kill you if you don't?" Hiccup offered, "The plan is not to win over Flamewing completely. That could take years. No, right now we just need him to be more accepting of..." He gestured to Sky's tail, "Disabilities."

Koda chuckled, "That's never gonna happen."

Hiccup smiled a bit, "You'd be surprised, Koda." He mused, "I thought the same of my father..."

"So what's your proposition for him?" Astrid questioned.

"To stop killing the runts and disabled." Hiccup replied simply, "To send them to Berk. While they might just be more mouths to feed for Flamewing, for us, Night Furies of _any_ kind are invaluable assets, and with my inventions, I might be able to give some of them relief from their disabilities, like Toothless and Sky. Besides, I've been thinking, and... Well, I mean, I saw Sissel holding Koda earlier, and... Well, let's be honest, the kids we've been given, most of them are too small, too young to fit on the saddles for our dragons, and I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to modify them down to size. If we want to teach them how to ride dragons at their ages, we'll need younger dragons. We can even make a festival out of it, have something of a "coming of age" ceremony, where, after the young runts have been here until a certain age, they can show their worth for Flamewing and he can decide then if they can come back to the clan, if they even want to."

Sky seemed to consider this, "I suppose he might go for that. It would be win-win. They would be safe, but not in his way."

"Seems reasonable," Astrid admitted, "But the plan for getting to that point is completely insane."

"What she said," Koda murmured.

"Well, we won't be making any moves right away. For now, I need to work on making you a new tailfin," Hiccup said, looking to Sky, "But when that's done, we'll need to start talking to the others about this..." He heaved a sigh before adding, "If I can get my father to listen to me." With this, he took a few notes in his journal before heading off to the Smithy, presumably to work on the tailfin he'd promised, and Toothless was right behind him.

"Even if father agrees to that, that would mean Sky would be staying _here_ on _Berk!_" Toothless complained as he trailed after Hiccup.

Hiccup glanced over his shoulder, "Well, you're both going to have to learn to deal with that. Sorry, bud, but you kinda brought this upon yourself."

"Can't you just let one of the other Vikings kill him? Wouldn't that be easier?" He asked.

"Easier? Maybe. My style? No, not at all. Besides, if we killed him, there'd be no reconciling with Flamewing at all." Hiccup reminded, "Berk and dragons are at peace now, our personal feelings for Sky aside. If it's okay to kill one, it'll be okay to kill more, and we're not going back to that."

Toothless' ears perked a bit, "_Our_ personal feelings?"

Hiccup, who, by now, was busily working on measuring materials, paused to stare incredulously at Toothless, "What, you think I approve of the way he treats you, of what he's done? Come on, Toothless, you know me better than that." He resumed his work, allowing silence to come between them for a moment before he added, "You know, that's part of the reason I want to have the other runts here, on Berk. This unworthy attitude of yours, it's sad to watch."

The dragon curled his tail around himself, "You're not much better yourself, you know," He said quietly.

"I know I'm not, and that makes it all the more depressing." Hiccup admitted glumly. He was not truly working inside the smithy, instead, he was in the back, as he was just cutting and measuring material for the time being, anyway. Here, he could talk to Toothless without attracting the attention of people passing by. Or so he thought.

"It might be more practical to work inside. You know, where the tools are?" Astrid suggested. She and Stormfly had come to check on the progress, and were now coming around to the backside of the shack.

"Ah, hey, Astrid," Hiccup greeted, swiftly returning his attention to his work, "Just finishing up measurements..."

Astrid sat down beside him, "Want some help?"

"Um, no, no thanks, I'm good. I kind of have a system down for building Night Fury tail fins, since someone can't seem to keep his on," He teased, poking Toothless with his foot.

"Hey, builder's error," Toothless accused in an equally playful manner.

"Really..." Astrid murmured, "Because that looks pretty backwards to me. I thought it was Sky's _right_ tailfin. That looks like a left."

Hiccup blinked and looked down at his work. She was right. Although he had yet to start putting things together, he'd been laying them out in position, and he'd been doing it backwards. "I-I was testing you! And you passed, congratulations!" Hiccup flubbed as he quickly switched the parts around to make them face the right way.

The girl sighed and leaned into Hiccup some, causing the boy to tense up a bit, "You've been so busy lately, I feel like we've hardly had any time alone together."

Toothless rolled his eyes, "Should we leave?" He asked sarcastically, earning a less playful kick from Hiccup.

"You're right, we haven't," Hiccup agreed, sliding out from under her and gathering his materials to bring them into the shop.

Astrid frowned a bit and moved to stand in the doorway, "You've been really evasive, Hiccup."

"Have I? I hadn't really noticed," Hiccup lied as he continued to bury his nose in his work, making as much noise as possible.

"You're doing it right now." Astrid accused, "Look, if there's something else bothering you, just tell me so we can work it out."

Hiccup exhaled sharply before turning to face her, "Astrid, I'm fine. I'm just... Thinking too much, and this whole thing with Sky, Toothless, and Flamewing has got me on edge."

The girl seemed a bit disappointed, but seemed to accept this, "Well, if there's anything else you want to talk about... You know I'm always here for you."

"Yeah, thanks." Hiccup mumbled, a bit too quickly as he turned his attention back to the metal scraps before him. Eventually, Astrid and Stormfly gave up and left Toothless, Hiccup, and Koda alone to finish Sky's tailfin.

It took several hours of hard work, but eventually the prosthetic was complete, and Hiccup brought it to the stables to give to Sky, but when he arrived, he found that Sky was nowhere to be seen. "Huh. That's strange." Hiccup murmured as he returned to Toothless and Koda, who he'd had wait for him outside to prevent conflict. "Sky's not here."

Toothless snorted, annoyed, "Who cares? The sun's starting to go down, it's time to eat! I'm hungry!"

Glancing up at the sky, Hiccup realized that Toothless was right, it was about time for dinner. His stomach growled at this realization, and a hunger he hadn't realized had been brewing suddenly surged up. "Yeah. Alright, bud, go ahead and take Koda down to the bowl. I'll meet you both back home." With this, the three parted course, the moment Hiccup walked into the Great Hall, Stoick got to his feet and called for Hiccup to sit by him and Gobber. Hiccup reluctantly obliged, squeezing between the two large men nervously. "This is unusual," He remarked, trying to break the tension. It wasn't working.

"What happened with that dragon and Toothless?" Stoick demanded.

Hiccup heaved a sigh. He didn't want to tell his father the truth, that he could talk to dragons, but he was beginning to run out of options. Even if he were to make something up now, the truth would come out later when Stoick asked how they would get the battle plan from the Outcasts. "It's a long story," He said, after much consideration.

That wasn't quite good enough for Stoick. "We have time." He said simply.

Gobber, noticing the tailfin sticking out of a sack on Hiccup's back observed, "That tail looks a bit big for Toothless."

"It's not for Toothless," Hiccup mumbled, "It's for Sky. It's an automatic tailfin like the one I made Toothless for Snoggletog."

"You mean th' one he obliterated?" Gobber wondered.

"Yeah, that's the one," Hiccup mumbled, "I've made some improvements on this one, reinforced it some."

"Why?" Stoick asked, "Hiccup, what in Odin's name is going on with these Night Furies?"

* * *

Props to Sairey13 for the idea with the runts (that was a very long time ago)~

Another short chapter, but I had to end it there for the "Dah-dah-duuunnnn" factor. Poor, poor Hiccup just can't seem to catch a break. And where did Sky run off to?


	15. Honesty

Hiccup stared at his plate of untouched mutton and potatoes, no longer feeling particularly hungry. There was only one thing left to do. "Sky and Toothless are fighting over me because Sky wants Toothless to have nothing and/or be dead, he might have tried to kill him before he was even born, nothing too important, anyway, gotta run, Sky needs this tailfin!" With this said (at an alarmingly fast pace in hopes that Stoick and Gobber wouldn't catch all of it) Hiccup got to his feet and turned to run, but Gobber grabbed the back of his vest reflexively. He was rather used to Hiccup running off during important things.

"Now wait just a minute, you haven't even touched your dinner," The blacksmith/dragon dentist pointed out.

"I just realized I wasn't hungry!" Hiccup tried.

Though that was the truth, Gobber and the chief knew him well enough to know that there was more to the story than that. Besides which... "How do you know so much about their past?" Stoick pried.

And there it was. No running from that question. Hiccup heaved a sigh, "Promise you won't tie me to a mast and ship me away?" He glanced over at his father nervously. There was a strong possibility that the man would think he was completely insane.

Stoick laughed heartily, "What?! Of course I won't, sit down!"

Not feeling too reassured, Hiccup pried Gobber's chubby fingers off of him as he stalled, "I know... because..." The moment Gobber's last finger was free of his vest, he finished, "Toothless told me himself." That said, he bolted for the door before anyone else could stop him. He ran as fast as he could to the dragon food bowl, where he jumped onto Toothless back without warning.

The Night Fury wheeled around to attack, assuming it was Sky, but when he saw Hiccup's worried expression, he swallowed back the gas he'd been emitting. "Hiccup? What happened?"

"We're running away. Far away, just you, me, and Koda." Hiccup replied vaguely, throwing the sack containing Sky's tailfin to the ground. He then noticed that Sky himself was standing not far off. "Oh, Sky. There's your tailfin. Bring it to Gobber, he should know how to put it on. We looked for you earlier-"

"He was already here," Toothless cut in, "What happened?"

Grabbing Koda and pulling her up onto the saddle with him, Hiccup replied, "No time to explain, my dad is gonna-"

"HICCUP!" A booming voice echoed throughout the island, and Hiccup winced at the sound of it.

"-blow. Come on, bud, we gotta get out of here." Hiccup encouraged. Apparently, Stoick's enraged voice was enough for Toothless to take off without a second thought, leaving Sky and the Isle of Berk behind.

After about an hour or so of aimless flying over the open ocean, Toothless finally asked, "What did you do?"

Hiccup lowered his head shamefully, "I'm sorry, Toothless, he was asking too many questions and-"

"What did you do?" Toothless repeated, more firmly this time, but without any signs of anger. He was surprisingly calm, given the circumstances.

"I... _Implied_ that I had a conversation with you." Hiccup admitted.

Toothless looked over his shoulder incredulously, "You _what?!_ He's going to think you're completely insane!"

"I only implied it!" Hiccup protested, "Heavily... But still implied. He and Gobber wouldn't let me go, they kept asking questions and I had to tell them something!"

"Start over. What _exactly_ happened?" Toothless pressed, losing a bit of his earlier patience. He listened as Hiccup explained everything from the time they parted ways before asking, "So, that's it?"

Hiccup blinked, "What do you mean? Aren't you mad?"

"I'm not mad, you did what you had to... I'm just confused." Toothless explained.

"Your confusion confuses me. What is there to be confused about?" Hiccup wondered aloud, looking down at a sleeping Koda.

"The Hiccup I know wouldn't go through with this." The Night Fury said simply, "The Hiccup I know would have nightmares about his home and friends being attacked by Night Furies. He'd regret this decision the moment we landed."

The teen pursed his lips. Toothless was absolutely right, it was a decision made in the heat of the moment, and he probably would regret it as soon as he got to thinking about what would happen on Berk... But still... "Well what am I supposed to do, then?" He mumbled.

"Stick to your plan. Your father would have found out somewhere along the line following it anyway, so, it was just a little bit earlier than expected. No big deal." Toothless replied calmly, "You'll figure it out, Hiccup. You always do."

"And if I don't?"

"I'll be there," Toothless assured him, "I won't let anything bad happen to you. 'You save me, I save you, that's the way it is,' right?"

Hiccup heaved a sigh, calming his nerves. "You always know just what to say, don't ya bud?"

With an amused tone, the dragon replied, "I could say the same about you." With this, they turned around and began their journey back to the island in relative silence.

It was well after dark when they finally made it back to the skies surrounding Berk, only to find it teeming with a search party of dragons. Toothless adjusted himself so that he was flying beside Stormfly, who didn't seem to acknowledge his presence. "Who are we looking for?" The dragon asked casually.

"Hiccup. He and Toothless disappeared after something happened with his father. I don't know what happened, but I'm worried about them." Stormfly replied, too caught up in the search to realize what was going on.

"You should be more concerned that we came back." Hiccup pointed out. His voice snapped both Stormfly and Astrid to attention as they both turned to look at him a little too quickly. Astrid made the mistake of loosening her grip on Stormfly out of shock and lost her balance when the dragon turned. Toothless swooped below Stormfly and caught Astrid on his back with ease.

"Hiccup!" Astrid threw her arms around him, "What happened?! I was so worried!"

Hiccup fidgeted uncomfortably, "Yeah, about that... I implied-"

"_Heavily_ implied," Toothless corrected.

"Right, _heavily_ implied that I'd had a conversation with Toothless. I ran off before he could react, because... Well, you know how he gets." Hiccup muttered.

Astrid sighed, "Well that explains a lot. Stoick is going berserk. If Gobber weren't around to talk him down, he probably would've capsized the whole island looking for you and 'that damn dragon.'"

"It's not Toothless' fault!" Hiccup snapped defensively.

"You should really be telling _him_ that." Astrid said pointedly, gesturing down to a rampaging Stoick who was in the process of destroying every barrel he could find.

Hiccup winced, "I'm glad I'm _not_ hiding in one of those."

"I think he knows you aren't. Toothless wouldn't fit in there, and wherever you are, you're with Toothless. That's always a given," Astrid reminded, getting to her feet before leaping off of Toothless and onto Stormfly, who was flying slightly below them by now, waiting to catch Astrid.

"Well, I guess it's time to face the music," Hiccup patted Toothless' side, "Bring us down, bud." Toothless nodded and slowly made his way to the ground, landing almost directly behind Stoick. Gulping back his anxieties, Hiccup called out, "You, uh... looking for something, dad?"

Stoick whirled around to face Hiccup and Toothless, "Hiccup!" He boomed, "What were you thinking?! Running off like that after what you said!"

"I know, I'm sorry," Hiccup mumbled, not daring to remove himself from Toothless' saddle in case they needed to make a quick escape.

Stoick seemed to calm down a tad, lowering his voice as he demanded, "What were you trying to say back there, son?"

Hiccup's eyes were locked on the back of Toothless' head as he considered running again, but the dragon turned to meet his gaze and gave a slight nod of encouragement. Finally looking to his father, the boy said, trying to sound as firm and confident as he possibly could, "Just what it sounds like. Dad, I can talk to dragons, and they can talk to me. Look, can we talk about this somewhere less... public?" Stoick seemed to agree to this, not wanting the fact that his son was a loon to be widely known throughout the village, and they went home, where Hiccup finally got off of Toothless' back.

"What do you mean you can talk to them?" Stoick asked, sounding rather detached.

"I... I can have conversations with them. I understand them just as clearly as I understand you." When Stoick appeared to get more agitated, Hiccup offered, "Alright, why don't I tell you what happened from the beginning? Everything I know, I'll tell you, okay? Just... Don't misunderstand. This isn't me guessing what Toothless is saying, it's me hearing real conversations with real words, whether I'm trying to hear them or not." Hiccup then proceeded to explain everything, from the moment Toothless went off-course to where they sat now.

"I don't believe this." Stoick said after several long moments of silence. He covered his face with a meaty paw and rubbed, "My son can talk to dragons."

Chuckling nervously, Hiccup squeaked, "Yeah, pretty crazy, huh?" There was more silence until finally Hiccup realized he had to say something, "Dad, I know it's a lot to take in, and that's why I didn't want to tell you, you've got enough problems to deal with, but if this plan is going to work, you'll have to be in on it anyway, and-"

"What does Toothless think of this plan?" He asked, sliding his hand down his face to his beard as he observed the following conversation between Hiccup and Toothless.

"Well, he said... I don't know. Toothless, what _do_ you think of my plan?" Hiccup wondered, now just as curious as his father as he looked at his dragon.

"I think we should kill Sky. Beyond that, the plan is fine. I just don't want him on Berk." Toothless replied honestly, "This is _my_ home. I already had to leave one home because of him, I'm not going to do it again. Especially not now, with all that's happened... I belong here, with you." He nuzzled the boy affectionately to make his point.

Hiccup couldn't help but smile a bit at the sweet words as he rubbed the scales of the Night Fury's back, "He said he has no problem with the plan, but he wants us to kill Sky. He said he's already had to leave one home because of him, he's not going to lose anything more. And I agree, Toothless shouldn't have to suffer any more, but that doesn't mean killing Sky is okay. If we kill "one more" dragon then it's going to be okay to kill more. Just one more, just one more, just this pest, until we're right back where we started."

Stoick stared in awe. It really was as if Hiccup ant Toothless were talking to one another. Collecting himself, the man cleared his throat and asked, "What do you propose we do, then? This incident with Sky might not be isolated. There could be other problem dragons in the future that we won't be able to tame. What would you do with them?"

The teen hadn't really thought about that. "Drive them away from the island. Night Furies aside, most dragons aren't as stubborn as you Vikings are. If they think that the island they want to inhabit is unsafe for them, that they can't win, they'll go somewhere else. We'll make it clear that if they can't see eye-to-eye with us, they're unwelcome." Toothless suggested, "But we can start that _after_ Sky is killed. Night Furies are stubborn and proud, they won't back down as easily as the others, that's why they so rarely leave their island. If a Night Fury comes here, it'll be for one of two things- to join us or to annihilate us."

Rolling his eyes, Hiccup mumbled, "Toothless, we're not going to kill Sky."

It was then that Stoick spoke up, "I agree with Toothless." Hiccup blinked and turned to his father, "If what you've told me is all true, the Devil's got it coming!" Toothless rubbed against Stoick's knee appreciatively.

"No. Dad, Toothless, no. We're not killing Sky." He then added, "Toothless suggested we could drive off other dragons, that they're not as stubborn as Vikings and won't continue to try to inhabit a place they're unwelcome, but... Not night Furies. Any Night Fury that comes to Berk is coming for one of two things- to join us or to kill us all. We don't really know Sky's intentions at this point, and it's not fair to-"

"It's not fair to _who?!_" Toothless snapped suddenly, "It's not fair that the truth about what he's done comes out? That I have a little taste of revenge? What's not fair, Hiccup, is that I have to put up with him day in and day out, even though he's just a visitor, and now I'm being told it might be permanent!"

Hiccup winced, "No, you're right, it isn't fair to you either, Toothless, but..." He sighed thoughtfully, "Okay, how about this, we don't make any decisions on that subject until _after_ we've carried out my plan. We won't be able to do it without him, and maybe he'll change when he sees Flamewing's reaction to him. Can we agree on that? Just table this whole thing for now?"

Toothless snorted, but lowered his head in submission. "Fair enough," Stoick confirmed, "It's too late to do anything now. Get some rest and go talk to that Monstrous Nightmare tomorrow."

"Thank you," Hiccup murmured gratefully. He was shocked, to say the least. His father seemed to be accepting his new ability so far, even though it made him seem like a lunatic.

The teen had just started for his room when Stoick's voice stopped him. "And, son? Don't tell anyone else about... this." He gestured non-specifically to Hiccup and Toothless.

"I hope I won't have to," Hiccup agreed, and, with this, finished climbing the stairs. Curling up in bed with Koda, he murmured, "Well that wasn't so bad. Could've gone worse. I was expecting it to be worse."

"So was I," Toothless affirmed.

Koda, snuggling close against Hiccup's chest, said, "I hope everything works out alright."

"Mmm," Hiccup ran a hand over the tiny dragon's scales, then looked to Toothless, who he noticed was staring at them. "Something wrong, buddy?"

The room was silent for a time before Toothless asked finally, "Why does Koda get to sleep with you?"

"She's a baby, that's why. And she gets cold if she doesn't have body heat." Hiccup replied, rolling his eyes a bit, "Are you seriously going to start getting jealous about Koda, too? Give it up, Toothless, you're going to start turning green." (A/N: Green with envy)

"Hmph," Toothless snorted indignantly.

"Tell you what- you stop doing that burning the floor before curling up thing and I'll make a bigger bed so you can sleep by me too." Hiccup offered.

The Night Fury flinched, "It's too cold if I don't!" He protested.

"But a bed would set on fire if you did." Hiccup pointed out. Toothless grunted, disgruntled, and tried to think of another solution. Smiling at the "back to normal" conversation Hiccup said, "Goodnight Toothless, Koda." And eventually drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Another shorter chapter. Sorry guys... I dunno what's going on with me. I'm having sleeping problems that are bothering me. Hopefully it'll go away soon and I can get back to normal-length chapters. For now, I'm just happy I'm able to make semi-regular updates.


	16. Time for a Change

Not everyone had such pleasant thoughts on their minds that evening. The fight between Sky and Toothless had not yet been dismissed by the other dragons of the island- especially Sky himself. Under the cover of darkness, he was practicing flying with his new automatic tailfin. It was a bit slow to react at first, so there were a few unfortunate incidents involving his face and cliffs, but he thought he was doing quite well. Well enough, perhaps, to make that long flight back to the Isle of Night. While it was true that the other Night Furies would likely kill him if he came with nothing, perhaps he could manage to persuade them to let him go if he told them what that boy was planning, and what his dragon had done. He was perched on the edge of a cliff, looking out at the ocean, steeling himself for the stamina to make it back home when he heard a voice call from behind him, "Going somewhere?" He wheeled around to see Stormfly- along with Hookfang, Thornado, Barf, and Belch closing in on him. Panicked, he turned to fly away, but was stopped by Meatlug, who rose up from the grounds below the cliff and spooked him into backing straight into the half-circle of dragons.

"I was just testing my new tail," Sky replied a little too innocently as he held it up for the others to see, "The one Hiccup made me."

"If that were the case, you wouldn't have tried to run." Meatlug pointed out. Usually, she wasn't the one for violence, she preferred to live a more peaceful life than, say, Barf and Belch, but this Night Fury was testing her patience.

Hookfang stepped in, "Did you honestly think you would get away with what you've done to Toothless?"

Sky looked offended, "I've hardly raised a paw at him! He's the one who tore _my_ tailfin off!"

"Rightfully so!" Stormfly interjected, "You deserve it after what you've done! We heard about you, what you did to him!"

The Night Fury was even more confused, "I didn't do anything!"

"That's not what we've heard," Belch purred, his snakelike head coming around to one side of Sky while Barf was on the other.

"That's right. We know the truth about you," The other head cooed.

Sky looked back and forth between the two heads, getting rather flustered, "I don't know what you're talking about! Leave me alone!"

"Oh, stop teasing the poor thing and put him out of his misery." Hookfang suggested, seeming all too eager to do so himself.

"That's enough!" Stormfly barked, and everyone snapped back to attention, allowing her to take slow, deliberate steps towards Sky, "You call Toothless a traitor, but who are you to say that? From what we've heard... The real traitor here, is you, Sky."She leaned in close with her head turned so she could fix an eye on him, "What did you do to the alphas' clutch?"

"I-I don't know what you're talking about!" Sky stammered, pretty obviously looking for a way out now as his head turned wildly in all directions, calculating his wingspan.

Hookfang took note of this and said, "Oh, don't look so anxious. We're only just getting started." With this, he lunged forth and tore the prosthetic tail off of Sky, preventing him from leaving. Or so he thought. When Hookfang ducked his head, Sky took his chance and jumped into the air, batting his wings in a pathetic struggle to stay up. He managed to make it to the other side of Hookfang before he hit the ground running, and it wasn't long before there was an enraged roar from Stormfly, and he heard the pounding of paws behind him.

In that moment, Sky was utterly helpless. He could run wherever he wanted, but the island was only so big, and these dragons knew it much better than he did. There was no talking to them, not in this state, especially not after he'd tried to run. He had only one option, "HELP!" He shrieked, making for the village, hoping that the humans would wake up and take control of their dragons.

Unfortunately for him, the humans were used to living with dragons, so a mild amount of noise was not enough to wake them... However, there _were_ two sleepy Night Furies who managed to hear the ruckus. Toothless' ears perked and his head turned in the direction of the sound. "What was that?" Koda groaned from her place beside Hiccup.

"Wake Hiccup, I'll go check it out." Toothless replied simply, then hopped out the window and down into the streets below, where chaos was ensuing. There was a flurry of wings, claws, gnashing teeth and for a moment, he almost thought there was a rival attack... Until he saw Sky. Annoyed that the other dragons were trying to take his fight, Toohless jumped into the fray, snapping and snarling until the other dragons backed off and Sky was safely tucked behind his wing. "What the Hel are you all thinking?!" He scolded, then heard a door slam and the familiar sound of Hiccup's metal leg running up behind him.

Though Hiccup had missed the fight, he could see that Sky was badly bloodied, his wounds seeping and glistening in the moonlight. "What... What happened?" The mob of dragons averted their eyes guiltily, caught in the act.

"What were you thinking?" Toothless pressed, moving in below Stormfly, "Stormfly? What did you do?"

"He was trying to run away," She said dismissively.

"So you thought it would be a good idea to kill him?" Hiccup challenged, folding his arms over his chest. "Great. Now I have all the dragons _and_ my father to convince. We're not going to kill Sky. End of discussion. Anyone who wants to argue that point, well, you know how to leave."

"But-"

"Ah!" Hiccup pointed an accusatory finger at Hookfang, who had tried to protest, then at the sky, "You want to go back out there, be my guest. Sky is a guest on this island, and I don't want to see any more fights over this."

Meatlug came forward, "It's my fault. I told them what Sky did to the alphas' clutch."

Hiccup smacked a hand to his forehead. "Fishlegs..."

Toothless growled angrily, "This is why I didn't tell anyone before!" He snapped, "It's none of your business, so just stay out of it!"

"But, Toothless-" Stormfly tried.

"This is between me and Sky! I've said it before and I'll say it again! It's my fight!" Toothless spat, glaring at her.

"We just wanted to help-"

"If you want to help, you can start by going home and never speaking of this again." Hiccup told the dragoness grimly. It took a while for everyone to calm down, but eventually, the dragons dispersed, leaving only Hiccup, Toothless, Sky, and Koda, who was perched on Hiccup's shoulder.

The youngling looked down at Sky, pain in her eyes, "Is it true, Sky?" She asked cautiously, "Did you really... Did you really sabotage them?"

Sky lowered his head in silence, which was enough of an answer for all involved, really. "Never mind about that now. That's in the past, right? You have a chance to make up for it now, Sky. Don't screw it up." Hiccup pointed out, "What do you think would've happened just now if Toothless hadn't come in to save you?" More silence. "We'd be cleaning up a big mess of Night Fury in the morning, that's what." Hiccup said, answering his own question, "So what are you going to do? Are you going to pretend this never happened, wait for it to happen again? Or are you going to be honest about what's really going on with you and Toothless and try to make it up to him?" The dragon turned his gaze to Hiccup, who saw the same fear and regret that he'd once had.

Kneeling down beside Sky he said softly, "Look Sky, we all make mistakes. Take me, for example, I shot Toothless out of the sky, maimed him so he would never have flown again... But I realized the error in my ways, and I made it up to him. I made him a new tailfin, and protected him when the other Vikings wanted to kill him, and, see? He's forgiven me." He lightly placed a hand on Toothless' head to prove his point, "The other Vikings, they used to enjoy killing dragons, but now look at them. They can't do anything without them! Berk is all about second chances, Sky, but we can't give you one if you aren't willing to put some effort in yourself."

Sky lowered his gaze again and curled into himself, "Toothless wouldn't forgive me." He grumbled.

"I wouldn't forget." Toothless growled, "But I could learn to forgive, if I thought you would actually change."

After several minutes of silence, Hiccup straightened up and said, "That's enough for tonight. Let's all get back to sleep..." He glanced at Sky's tail and noticed that the fin was missing once again, "Looks like I've got a lot of work ahead of me tomorrow."

Hiccup turned to leave with Toothless at his side when Sky called out meekly, "I'm sorry... for causing so much trouble..."

The boy paused, but didn't spare a glance back at the Night Fury, "Thanks, but... I think it's going to take a lot more than that to get back into our good graces." With this, he patted Toothless' side and led him back home. Once settled in to sleep once more, Hiccup said, "You know, I'm proud of you, Toothless. You handled yourself really well out there." Toothless merely snorted in response. "I know I probably shouldn't have said _we_ would forgive him, in retrospect, I can't really expect you to, but..."

"It's fine." Toothless mumbled, "I'll never completely forgive him because I'll never be able to forget all he's done, but... I think I can go from wanting him dead to wanting him gone. He should be able to accept that much."

Hiccup smiled a bit, "I suppose that's fair enough. An improvement, at least."

Silence fell between them for a moment before Toothless asked finally, "Are you going to make him confess to my parents?"

Koda flinched, not particularly comfortable with the way this conversation was going. Actually, the whole night had been the worst of her life, and she wanted nothing more than to put it all behind her, but apparently Hiccup and Toothless were going to talk about it all night. Grown-ups could be so weird. "We'll take it one step at a time," Hiccup murmured thoughtfully, "Let's see if he's really going to cooperate with us now before we make any decisions. Stormfly said he was trying to run off when they caught him, so we'll have to watch him more closely."

"After tonight, I'm not sure he'll be so eager to run. I think we actually got through to him, this time," Toothless said hopefully, "Like you said, he'd just be one big mess to clean up in the morning if we hadn't gone down there when we had. I think he's finally starting to understand that we are a pack, in our own rights... And packs stick together. He knows that."

"I hope you're right, bud." The teen mumbled, "Wouldn't be the first time he's fooled me."

"But the look in his eye," Toothless protested, "That's not a typical look for him. He was completely submissive. He knew that we were in control, and that he wouldn't be alive if not for us. That expression makes me think that maybe there's some hope for him."

Again, an eerie calm, until Hiccup made the bad joke, "Hey, at least you don't have to worry about Sky being better than you anymore, now that both of you have only half a tail."

"And that's _exactly_ why I'm willing to consider forgiving him... a little." Toothless purred smugly. "But never mind that. Get some sleep, Hiccup. We've got a long day and a lot of explaining ahead of us."

"Mmm," Hiccup grumbled affirmatively, "After that, I don't think I'm going to be sleeping easy for at least a week."

"Me neither," Koda admitted, but even as she said this she was giving in to the siren song of sleep, and it wasn't long before all of them managed to fall asleep- though some slept more fitfully than others.

Come morning, the three awoke to an irate and concerned Astrid slamming the front door to the house shut. Normally, Hiccup and Toothless would have been out flying by this time, but Toothless was far too exhausted to be interested in an early morning flight, and Hiccup felt quite the same way, so they'd slept straight through sunrise, until the girl stomped up into their room and shouted, "HICCUP! _WHAT_ happened to Stormfly?!"

A groggy Hiccup sat up, rubbing his eyes, "Is this going to be a regular thing? I think I prefer Toothless' wake up calls, at least I get to do something fun when he wakes me- woah!" He was suddenly grabbed by the collar and lifted into Astrid's face.

"Tell me what happened last night or so help me-" She threatened.

"Alright, alright, take it easy!" Hiccup cut in, pushing her away, "So bossy," He yawned and waved Toothless over to his bedside. The dragon obeyed, though he didn't really understand what he was wanted for. "Fishlegs went and told Meatlug about Toothless' past, and Meatlug told all the other dragons," He explained sleepily, "That's probably how my dad found out, too, but I can talk to him later... Last night when we were all asleep, Sky decided he was going to run off and try to get back in with the Night Furies, probably sell us out in the process."

"WHAT?! Sky ran away?!" Astrid panicked, but Hiccup seemed unconcerned.

"He was going to, but the other dragons stopped him and started picking a fight. I don't know _exactly_ what happened, by the time I got down there it looked like Toothless was about to tear someone's throat out, so I sent them all home. Toothless woke up when he heard the noise from the other dragons and had Koda wake me. When I got down there, Sky was all bloodied up and his tailfin was gone. I probably should have bandaged him up, come to think of it..." Hiccup thought aloud, recalling the wounds. He hadn't even thought about that in the heat of the moment, "Anyway, he was hiding behind Toothless, who had apparently broken up the dragonfight. They were all there. Meatlug, Barf and Belch, Hookfang, Stormfly, even Thornado. Sky apologized for causing trouble, but he never admitted to anything more than trying to run... But Toothless seems to think Sky learned his lesson last night."

"If he didn't, he's even more of an idiot than I thought." Toothless provided.

Hiccup yawned again, "I didn't see the other dragons. What's wrong with Stormfly?"

"Nothing, she just had blood all over her face and talons..." Astrid said honestly, "But Toothless, you really think we can trust him now?"

The dragon snorted, repulsed at the thought, "Trust? No. Never trust. But I think we can give him a chance to prove he's changed. That much... we can allow." Naturally, Hiccup translated all of this for Astrid, who nodded thoughtfully.

"Anyway, Astrid, I'm sorry, but I think I'm going to be a bit late to the Academy today... for... obvious reasons. I haven't even eaten yet. Do you think you and Fishlegs can handle getting them started with the basics of the Gronckle until I get there?" He asked, finally forcing himself to get out of bed.

"Sure, just don't take too long." The girl replied, and, seemingly satisfied, dismissed herself.

The moment she left the room, Hiccup fell against Toothless' side dramatically, "What did I get myself into?" He moaned.

"Too much, if you ask me. You're in way over your head in all aspects of your life." Toothless replied honestly, leaning against Hiccup to force him to stand on his own two feet again, "But it's nothing we can't handle."

"Yeah, I hope so." Hiccup agreed, "Alright, go get breakfast, I'll meet you at the arena... And try to keep everyone from fighting in the meantime." He lifted Koda off his bed and set her on Toothless' back, adding, "Things are bad enough already without another dragonfight."

Toothless nodded curtly and carried Koda off to the food bowl, where she hopped off to eat. The other dragons were already there... There was just one missing. "Where's Sky?" Toothless demanded, sincerely hoping that the others hadn't gone against him to kill Sky.

"Haven't seen him." Stormfly replied honestly.

Suddenly, from nowhere, a flash of blue rushed to the bowl. It was Sky, and he was _starving_. He shoved his nose into the fish like he hadn't eaten in days. "Sky? Where have you been?" Toothless questioned, looking over the other Night Fury's wounds. There were a few particularly nasty ones, including one over his eye that scratched clear through to his skull, but nothing fatal.

"I was waiting for you," Sky mumbled under his breath, then, even more quietly (if that were even possible,) he added, "Alpha always eats first."

Toothless' ears perked, and he snatched up a fish to hide his smug expression. "So are we not going to talk about-" Stormfly began, but was cut off by a seething glare from Toothless.

"No. We're not going to talk about it, we're not going to act upon it, we're not going to _think_ about it until we've spoken with my father. Are we clear?" The other dragons lowered their heads submissively, "And no more late-night dragon fights, regardless of reason. If you have a problem, work it out during the day when we're awake to tell you to stop. You could have killed him, you know."

"You _want_ him to die." Hookfang pointed out.

"Hiccup doesn't," Toothless stated, "And I'm willing to give him a second chance if he cooperates and figures out how things work around here."

Sky's ears were slicked back against his skull as he said, "I want to be better..."

Satisfied, Toothless puffed out his chest self-importantly, "So we're leaving it at that for now." With this, he resumed eating, and the others followed his example, enjoying their meal in an awkward silence. This would certainly take some getting used to.

* * *

More dragonfights! Well, this one is a little longer, so... I'm happy about that. Anyway, I hope you all are, too. I've been kinda sad lately because not as many people are reviewing as before D: Please love me! Or hate me. Just... Show me the feels?


	17. Coming Together

Byyyy the way- for any Portal/Portal 2 fans out there- yes, that is where I got my idea for Toothless' "I used to want you dead but now I only want you gone" thing. I thought it'd be completely wrong for Toothless to forgive him and act like nothing happened, but I thought this way everyone would be happy. Hate in moderation. Don't own Portal or Portal 2 or that song, by the way. I think the name of it is "Want You Gone," But I don't remember. I know it's by Jonathan Coulton though.

* * *

When he'd finished breakfast, Hiccup decided to make a little detour while Astrid and Fishlegs were in charge of class. After all, how much trouble could the children possibly get into while listening to Fishlegs go on and on about the Gronckle's nature? He made his way to the dragon nip patch where he'd asked Astrid to take the Monstrous Nightmare from the Isle of Night, and found that he was, sure enough, still rolling around blissfully in the grass- though he did look like he'd lost some weight. "Hey buddy, how's that dragon nip treatin ya?" He asked, approaching the dragon, who snapped to attention at the sound of Hiccup's voice.

"This is most excellent, I don't know how I can ever repay you for all this-" He began rolling anew, "My only complaint is that there's no food here."

"Well, this _is_ an island, it's not hard to find water to fish in," The boy pointed out, taking a seat.

"But I might lose my way back!" The dragon reminded.

Hiccup blinked, trying to figure out why this would be such a problem. If nothing else, he could always just go looking for Hiccup to ask for directions- the town of Berk itself was not hard to find by any means, especially from the air. Shaking the thoughts out of his mind, he said, "Well never mind that now, I have a favor to ask you. If you help me, I'll show you the way to easy food and back, and you can ask me any time you get lost."

The Monstrous Nightmare perked at this, "I'm listening,"

"Alright, well, first of all, do you know what the dragons did with the Outcasts?" He questioned.

"Brought them back to their island, of course," The Nightmare replied, "Despite what you humans think of us, we're not the bloodthirsty monsters you mark us for. No dragon in their right mind would go out of their way to kill a human."

Hiccup smiled a bit at this, "Right, I know. I know dragons aren't like most people think they are, but... I just needed to know where they are. The problem is, the Outcasts are familiar with our dragons. If they see one of ours land, they'll launch an attack... But _you_ are a wild dragon initially _from_ Outcast Island in the first place, so you might not raise suspicions. Just stay with them for a few days, let the other dragons know that Night Furies are going to attack the island either tomorrow night or the night after, ward them so they can stay out of the way. We won't be aiming for them, but the Outcasts might try to use them as shields. They're not above that."

The Nightmare eyed him curiously, "Just what is it you're planning, boy?"

"Something crazy, stupid, and dangerous. If anything goes wrong, even a little bit, it could mean the destruction of this entire island, or worse, the human race as we know it. And they probably won't stop with just the humans, either." Hiccup heaved a sigh and got to his feet.

"And if it goes well? What's in it for you, then?" The Nightmare questioned.

With a small, forced smile, Hiccup replied, "Well, it's the same outcome if we don't do anything at all... I've seen what enraged Night Furies are capable of, and I don't know how far they'll go to get their revenge... So can I count on you to give them that message?"

"I don't see why you should care," The Nightmare murmured thoughtfully.

"Because I don't like senseless violence, either," The boy said, "And because when our raid is over, I'm going to need you to get every last detail of their plan of attack. Our plan is to frame the wild Night Furies by attacking with _only_ Night Furies. Their attacks are fast, accurate, and distinctive. It'd be hard for them to tell where the shots are even coming from in the chaos, so if they assume it was the Night Furies, they'll launch another attack on the Isle of Night. We'll need every single detail of what that plan is so we can intercept them, saving the day for the Night Furies, who will hopefully, in return, _not_ kill us."

"Well, it sounds interesting enough... And I must say, you do know how to make a deal appetizing. Very well, I will help you again, but do not forget our deal." With this, the Nightmare took off, fumbling for a moment as he struggled to remember how to fly in his dragon-nip fogged state of mind, before he finally managed to level out.

After watching the dragon leave, Hiccup heaved a sigh, "Alright... Two nights... We can do this." With this bit of self-encouragement, he raced off to the training arena where several very impatient teens, and even more impatient children, were listening to Fishlegs babble on about Meatlug's parenting skills. "Ah, Fishlegs? Maybe you could stick to what applies to _all_ Gronckles, not just Meatlug?" Hiccup suggested as he entered the arena.

Sky and Toothless raced to greet him, "Please shut him up, he won't stop going on about her- even Meatlug's embarrassed by it!" Toothless begged, nuzzling Hiccup. He paused for a second, then went around behind him, sniffing his behind.

"Toothless!" Hiccup tried to bat the dragon away, blushing furiously and attracting the attention of everyone in the room, but instead of stopping, Toothless rubbed his face against Hiccup's butt, making the situation even more awkward. "Toothless, cut it out!" Hiccup demanded, turning around and taking a few steps back.

"You smell like dragon nip." Toothless accused, padding closer.

"Ah, right, he- he probably smells dragon nip on my pants..." Hiccup translated in a way that made it sound like he'd figured it out himself, "I was, ah, checking on a guest of ours who's been rolling around in the stuff for days. Must've rubbed off on me when I sat down. Moving on! Nothing to see here!" He managed to get his back against the wall of the arena, preventing any further butt-sniffing embarrassment, and Astrid sidled over to him while Fishlegs began rambling again.

In a low voice she asked, "Well? What did he say?"

"He said he'd do it. We've got two days to launch our attack." Hiccup replied, "He said all the Outcasts should be safe on Outcast Island, and..." He averted his gaze, "My father's in on this plan, too. He made me tell him everything last night."

Astrid winced, knowing how well Stoick took news like this, "How did it go?"

"Surprisingly well, actually," Hiccup replied, his spirits lifting again, "I mean he was skeptical at first, but then he asked me to ask Toothless what he thought of the plan and, well, after he saw the two of us talking, I think he was able to accept it. He told me not to tell anyone else I can do it, though... But I guess that really depends on how well Fishlegs does keeping his mouth shut. So far, not so good."

"I'm really sorry about that," Astrid said reassuringly.

"Well, it all worked out for the best. In the meantime..." He turned to look at Sky and Toothless, who had followed him, "What are we gonna do with you?"

Astrid gasped. "Oh my gods! Your eye!" She was clearly trying to keep her voice down, but wasn't doing a very good job at it, "I hadn't seen it up close before... Oh, you poor thing!" She knelt down to examine the wound, at which Sky growled and backed away.

"Just remember he's still a wild dragon, Astrid. I don't think he really wants us touching him more than we have to..." He moved to examine the wound before adding, "But we really should put together an ointment to keep it from getting infected, at least."

"I'm fine," Sky mumbled, lowering his head shamefully, "I got what I deserved."

"And there's that Night Fury pride thing..." He straightened up again and looked to Astrid, "Anyway, I'm going to have to make him a new tail fin before we go-"

"Are you sure that's such a good idea?" Astrid prodded, "I mean, he tried to run the last time, right?"

Hiccup gestured to the dragon, "Seriously, Astrid? I _think_ he may have learned his lesson... I wasn't so sure about it either, but, well... Toothless knows him better than any of us, and if he says it's okay, then it's okay with me."

"You could just wait to give it to me until we're ready to go. If it's like the last one, it's not hard to get a hang of using it, so I'll be alright," Sky surprised everyone by suggesting this himself, "Or... Or make me one like Toothless', one that I'd need a rider to use."

"But then we'd need to find you a rider in time. It takes too long to learn the controls, I know from experience." Hiccup murmured, "But the fact that you're suggesting it at all is an amazing improvement, Sky. I'm impressed, but I think, just to be sure, we will do that. Just wait until it's time to go, if you think you'll be alright with it."

The sapphire dragon bowed his head respectfully, and then Toothless did something perhaps even more surprising. He wandered over to Sky and licked the gash his forehead, far too high up for Sky to reach with his own tongue... And Sky allowed it. "There." Toothless said when he'd finished, stepping back to admire his handiwork, "That should help. You weren't able to reach that one, were you?"

"No, I wasn't... Thank you." Sky uttered submissively, while the humans just stared on in awe.

"Good. Don't get used to it. That was just a reward for good behavior." With this said, the smaller Night Fury turned tail and stalked off.

"Oh, good, I thought Toothless was coming down with something for a second there." Hiccup muttered.

"What just happened?" Astrid wondered aloud, looking back and forth between the two Night Furies.

Hiccup shrugged, "Toothless rewarded him for good behavior, apparently. I think he heard us talking about making an ointment and decided to do something about it himself, since Sky can't reach up there."

"Weird." The girl commented, folding her arms across her chest.

"Tell me about it." Hiccup agreed, then, suddenly, he noticed something. "Where's Koda?"

"Oh, she's..." Astrid pointed to Sissel, who was rocking Sky as a normal child might rock a doll in her arms, trying to force-feed the poor thing eel.

Hiccup winced, "Poor Koda..." He then turned back to Astrid and asked, "Anyway, you think you can take care of things here? I want to get Sky's tail done, I'm hoping to get this over with tomorrow night."

_"Tomorrow?!"_ Astrid was taken aback by this, "That's way too soon, Hiccup!"

"We're running out of time!" The boy reminded as patiently as he could, "We're running out of time, and things with the dragons here on Berk are getting completely out-of-hand. I say we just get this over with before anything else has a chance to go wrong."

Astrid eyed him, almost as if sizing him up, before finally saying, "I hope you know what you're doing."

"I hope so, too." Hiccup agreed, and, with this, he turned to Sky, "I should probably take you with just in case trouble starts..." He then remembered Toothless' jealousy issues and glanced over his shoulder, "Toothless? You comin', bud?"

Toothless looked at Hiccup, then Sky, then trailed his gaze over to Koda, "Will she be alright by herself?"

"No! I assure you I will not be alright in the slight-aaaugh! YUCK! PTOO!" Koda had tried to ask for help, but unfortunately, in opening her mouth, Sissel was able to slip the eel's head into her mouth.

"I sympathize, Koda," Hiccup mumbled under his breath, "I can't get to her without making a scene, Astrid, could you bring her by the smithy when class lets out?" Astrid nodded curtly, and Hiccup led the Night Furies out of the arena.

Most of the way to the smithy, they heard Koda begging for help, then screaming in terror as more eel was fed to her, "Poor thing," Toothless muttered to himself.

"She'll live," Hiccup decided as they finally made it to the stall, "Actually, Sky, if you want, you can go back to the stables and rest for a while. I know it was a long night for you, and tomorrow won't be much better."

Sky hesitated. It was obvious he was tired, but... "Go ahead, it's fine. Rest will help you heal." Toothless stated, and at this, Sky murmured a thank you before rushing off. Toothless blinked, surprised, "Hiccup, did you see that?! He was waiting for me to tell him it was okay!"

"Yeah?" Hiccup, who was already busily working, was trying his best to sound interested in the conversation. It wasn't that he didn't care, he was just busy.

"Yeah, and earlier, at breakfast, he was missing, and when I asked where he was, he came running out and said he was waiting for me, and "Alpha always eats first." It's just like he would act with dad back home! Toothless enthused, forcing his way into the stall, knocking things over in the process.

"Well I imagine he's grateful for last night," Hiccup pointed out, far less enthusiastic about all this than Toothless was, He knew it was probably hurting Toothless' feelings, and he felt bad for that, but, "I'm sorry, buddy, it's not that I don't care- I'm happy for you, I really am, but I need to concentrate here."

Toothless pawed at the ground, "I understand,"

Hiccup was unconvinced. He suddenly dropped everything and turned to look at his dragon. Kneeling to Toothless' level, he grabbed the sides of the Night Fury's face and said, "You do a much better job filling the role of alpha than your father, and I'm really, _really_ proud of how you're handling yourself. You have no idea how grateful I am, and lucky I have you... I'm sorry I'm being distant, I'm just really stressed about everything that's going on and I want it to go perfectly, so... I promise, when all this is over, we'll go do something fun together, just the two of us- like a vacation. We can go check on those frozen Vikings."

"Maybe the Ice Gronckle froze some fish?" Toothless murmured, his ears perking a bit at his own suggestion, "Frozen cod... Icelandic Cod on Ice... Wonder what that would be like?"

"Yeah, see? That's the spirit," Hiccup grinned and scratched the back of Toothless' head, "Okay? It's a promise, when all this is over, we'll have some time together, just you and me, and we can talk as much as you want."

"Alright," Toothless agreed, seeming satisfied with this. He backed out of the stall, then paused just as Hiccup turned around to get back to work. "Hey, Hiccup?"

"Yeah, buddy?"

"I'd prefer going back to the cove."

Hiccup smiled to himself and said, "Wherever you want, Toothless."


	18. Rise and Fall

It didn't seem like long after Toothless left that Astrid came into the stall carrying Koda, but Hiccup supposed it must have been, as the sun was already beginning to set, and the tail was nearly done, he was just finishing greasing the gears. Astrid looked around suspiciously, "Hey, Hiccup... Where are Sky and Toothless?" She asked curiously.

"Oh, hey, Astrid," Hiccup greeted nonchalantly as he gave the tailfin a few pumps to test it. Seeing that it was working fine, he set it down and turned to face the girl, "I told them to go get some rest. We've got a big day ahead of us tomorrow and neither of them got much sleep last night." He reached out to take Koda from her, and the youngling promptly bit him, "Ow! Koda!"

Though she had retracted her teeth, she'd still bitten him with quite a bit of force, so it pinched a bit. "You left me with the eel girl?!" She whimpered.

"I'm sorry, Koda, I couldn't get to you!" Hiccup mumbled, shaking out his hand.

Astrid, who could only understand Hiccup's end of the conversation, asked, "What's wrong? Is she mad about being left with Sissel?"

"Apparently," Hiccup took Koda from Astrid, this time without incident, "But I said I'm sorry, if I went into the middle of the crowd and made a scene with Sissel, the class would've been to distracted to hear another word out of Fishlegs' mouth. Trust me, I'm familiar with easily distracted children."

"Tell me about it," Astrid grumbled, rolling her eyes, "Overgrown children at that. At least the little ones are cute!"

"I'm still mad at you," Koda pouted, but she snuggled against Hiccup's chest nonetheless, happy to be back in the safety of his arms.

Hiccup smiled slightly, hearing her actions more than her words, before looking up to Astrid, "Anyway, I've got Sky's tailfin ready, but I'm going to hold off on giving it to him until we're ready to go, just in case."

The girl seemed confused, "Hiccup, if you're hoping to leave tomorrow... when are you planning about telling the others about this?"

He winced, "That's on a... need-to-know basis. If I tell them, Snotlout will get jealous and do something stupid, and the twins will be right behind him, you know that. I'll tell them _after_ the initial attack on the Outcasts, when we're waiting for that Nightmare to come back with inside information. Until then, let's not talk about it, alright?"

Astrid didn't seem too impressed by this response. Hands on her hips, she demanded, "So we're going in there _alone?_ No backup at all?"

"Actually... _I'm_ going in there, with Toothless and Sky. We can't risk them seeing any of the other dragons, and they all need to be close-range to attack... And I don't think Sky would be comfortable with a rider." Hiccup explained.

"Hiccup, you can't go in there alone." Astrid told him harshly, "What happens if you and Toothless get separated like last time?"

"We won't! We won't be close enough for them to catch us, and since they only had the one bola launcher, the original one I made, they probably don't know how to make another one to get up high enough to attack us... But that said, if I'm not back by dawn, well, you know where I'll be." The boy said grimly, not meeting her gaze.

"Hiccup-"

"No, Astrid. I got us into this mess, it's my responsibility to get us out..." He hesitated a moment before muttering, "Let's just hope Sky cooperates this time." With this, he snatched up the new prosthetic tail fin and brushed past her, headed home. He knew it was potentially dangerous, but that was all the more reason to involve _less_ people rather than _more_, right? When he made it to his room, he glanced over at Toothless, who appeared to be asleep, and sat down on the edge of the bed with Koda.

The young dragon gazed up at him pleadingly, "I want to come, too!"

"If he's not letting Astrid come, why would he let you?" Toothless prompted, apparently not as asleep as he'd seemed.

"He's right, Koda, it's too dangerous." Hiccup agreed, ignoring the fact that Toothless had been eavesdropping.

"Who cares!" The youngling whined, "I'm just a Pixie anyway! At least let me _try_ to prove myself!"

Toothless got to his feet and padded over to Hiccup's bedside, "You'll get your chance, Koda, just not with this. Hiccup has enough to look out for without having to keep an eye on you as well... Besides, you aren't even old enough to use plasma blast, are you?" Koda lowered her head shamefully, "Didn't think so. Did your mother even teach you how to use flame?"

"Not yet..." She mumbled, pawing at the ground, "But I'm a fast learner!"

Hiccup, who was listening intently to the conversation, murmured, "Interesting... So you aren't born with the knowledge of how to use your fire and plasma, and you learn fire first..."

"Well, yes. If you don't get used to retracting your teeth when you use fire before moving on to plasma, you'll knock your teeth out." Toothless said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, "But never mind that now, Koda, this isn't about you being a Pixie, this is about you being a hatchli-"

"That's what I'm saying!" Koda cut in, "It doesn't matter that I'm a hatchling because _I_ don't matter! I'm just a Pixie! Nobody will care if anything happens to me!"

"Now that's not true," Hiccup reminded gently, "I'd feel horrible if something were to happen to you, and that attitude is exactly the kind of thing I'm trying to get rid of. Size isn't everything, and you'll get your chance to prove that, but not right now. Not with this."

"But-!"

"Koda, I'm not going to argue with you about this. You're not coming, end of discussion." With this, Hiccup flopped back on his bed and closed his eyes. "Toothless, take Koda to get some dinner before it's all gone, please."

The Night Fury eyed him worriedly, "Aren't you going to get something to eat yourself?"

"Nah, I'm not hungry... All this stress has got my stomach in knots, and I'm afraid to put anything in it, to be honest." Hiccup mumbled. He felt Toothless nudge his leg, genuinely concerned about him, and added in response, "I'll be fine, bud, don't you worry about me. I'm just gonna sleep it off." Giving up, Toothless snatched Koda up in his gums and carried her off to the dragons' food bowl in silence. Unfortunately for Hiccup, he never was able to take that nap he wanted. At first he was just lying awake anxiously, but then, just as he was beginning to nod off, he heard the door slam downstairs and his father's heavy footsteps stomping up to his room. Groaning, the boy sat up just as Stoick stepped into his room, "Hey, dad."

"You missed dinner," Stoick commented, "You'll never grow up big and strong if you don't eat right."

"I think that ship's already sailed. I'm fine with small and wimpy, anyway." Hiccup tried to joke, but his father could tell there was more to it than that. After raising the boy single-handedly most of his life, he could tell when something was on Hiccup's mind.

Stoick pulled up a stool and sat down, making it creak under his weight, "Alright, now what's really on your mind?"

Hiccup heaved a sigh and rubbed the back of his head awkwardly, mumbling to himself, "Well, I guess I had to tell you at some point anyway..." He took a moment to straighten out before announcing seriously, "I'm going to launch an attack on Outcast Island with Sky and Toothless tomorrow night, but don't tell anyone about it. In order for my plan to work, it has to be Night Furies attacking, and _only_ Night Furies."

The chief wore a grim expression as he asked, "So you're going alone, then?"

"No, not alone," Hiccup corrected, "With Sky and Toothless."

"Alone with Toothless and that Devil with traitorous tendencies." Stoick amended.

Hiccup winced. He couldn't really argue with that. "Sky's been acting different lately, dad, I think... I think we can trust him, at least enough to help us with this. Toothless does, too, after what happened last night-"

"What happened last night?" Stoick prodded. Apparently he hadn't heard anything about the dragon fight the night prior.

"Well... Sky tried to run away last night, and the Stormfly, Hookfang, Barf and Belch, Thornado, and Meatlug caught him and started a five-on-one dragon fight. They would've killed him if Toothless hadn't woken up from the noise and gone to check it out. Since then, he's been really submissive and grateful towards Toothless." Hiccup explained softly, "Sky was in pretty bad shape, and I had to make a replacement for that automatic tail fin, but I'm not giving it to him until we're ready to go- actually, Sky suggested that himself. He wants us to be able to trust him... I think he's finally starting to understand that he's not on the Isle of Night anymore, and here on Berk, we don't put up with traitors too well."

For a time, Stoick was silent, letting everything sink in as he considered all of the possibilities before finally, he nodded, "Alright, son. I won't tell anyone, but if you aren't back by dawn, we're going to come after you."

Hiccup smiled gratefully, "Thanks, dad. That's what I told Astrid, too. I'm planning on leaving Berk around this time tomorrow night, so... I mean, if you're not busy... You could come by the stables to see us off." Of course the boy always felt awkward asking his father for things like this, but he knew that having that little bit of support from Stoick would give him a major boost of confidence. It's always easier to feel confident when someone you love believes in you.

"I'll see what I can do," Stoick replied before getting to his feet and leaving the room.

Moments later, Toothless came in through the window and let Koda down, "Do you think he'll come?" He asked.

"Do you eavesdrop on _all_ of my conversations, or just the ones I least expect you to?" Hiccup wondered, only half-joking before adding quietly, "I don't think so. He's never been supportive of my passive-aggressive tendencies before, I don't see why he would now... We'll see." He lie on his side and allowed Koda to curl up against his chest, "I hope he does."

Toothless warmed up his rock slab before curling up on it, "Don't worry so much, Hiccup," He murmured, "With or without anyone's support, we'll get through this. We always do."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Hiccup groaned, "Our luck's got to run out sometime, right?"

"If you think like that it will." Toothless confirmed, which didn't really help, but he was trying. "Goodnight, Hiccup."

"Yeah... Goodnight Toothless, Koda."

The following evening, after a stressful day of teaching the kids at the Academy about the Deadly Nadder, Hiccup, Toothless, Koda, and Astrid made their way down to the stables where Sky was waiting. He'd decided he would rather spend the time alone rather than causing tension with the other dragons in the small quarters of the training facility, and it was probably just as well. Stormfly was rather cranky after having children pull her tail in all directions trying to figure out where the spines she threw came from. "Well, this is it." Astrid said nervously, trying to break the tension as Hiccup worked on securing Sky's new tail fin.

"Saying that like this is the last time you're going to see me isn't helping, Astrid." Hiccup muttered dryly.

"Oh, I've no doubt we'll see you again. I'm more concerned that it might take the loss of another limb ta bring ya back." Everyone wheeled around at the sound of Gobber's familiar voice to see both him and Stoick standing side by side. "Are ya sure ya want to go alone, Hiccup?"

Confusion turned to the kind of bliss that only an under-appreciated child can get from a parent. He was, at first, a bit surprised that his father had mentioned this to Gobber after telling him not to tell anyone, but then, what _didn't_ Stoick tell Gobber? "No, it's fine. I have to do this on my own- well, with Sky and Toothless. We got us into this, so we're going to get us out."

"He actually came!" Toothless trilled excitedly, "We should cause drama more often, Hiccup!"

"Please refrain." Hiccup grumbled. He could only imagine what life would be like if they had to do things like this on a regular basis. He'd probably go bald from all the stress. Finally, he cinched the last strap into place and said, "Alright, that should do it." He turned back to his father, Gobber, and Astrid, leading Sky out to see them.

The moment Stoick saw the wounds on Sky, he felt horrible for what he'd said before. A five on one dragon fight indeed! "Odin's beard, Sky! Are you sure you're alright to go with those wounds?"

Sky lowered his head and pawed at the ground, rather ashamed of it, "I got what I deserved- and I managed to keep my wings intact, so I'll be fine."

"He'll be fine. He thinks he got what he deserved in that dragon fight last night," Hiccup translated, "But his wings somehow managed to avoid major injuries, just shallow cuts, so he should be alright to fly."

"You weren't exaggerating, were ya Hiccup?" Gobber asked, referring to the fact that it had been a five on one dragon fight that probably would have killed Sky if not for Toothless.

"Yeah, well... They were angry, and they had every right to be, but it wasn't their fight, and it certainly wasn't a fair one... But I think it's given Sky a bit of an admittedly much-needed attitude adjustment. Hopefully this is the start of a brand-new Sky." Then Hiccup tried something he'd never dared on Sky before- he reached out and gently scratched behind the dragon's head. Sky purred and nuzzled into his hand, just like Toothless always would, but it was surprising to see it from this 'wild and murderous traitor.'

"I hope you're right. The last thing we need is another dragonfight like the last one." Stoick said, stepping closer to his son and placing a hand on the boy's shoulder, "I'm proud of you, son. You're taking responsibility and taking preemptive measures to keep our village safe. I certainly had my doubts, but you're starting to look like a promising future chief." It was like Stoick knew just the words to say- although, looking back, anything supportive would have had the same effect, probably. Hiccup threw his arms around his father, who promptly said, "And now you're ruining that image."

Chuckling, Hiccup said, "Thanks, dad." With this, he pulled back and looked to Toothless, "You ready, bud?"

"Ready to get out of here before Stoick changes his mind and says something to ruin your mood? Yes." Toothless moved to Hiccup and nosed him in the chest playfully before allowing the boy to get on his back.

Handing Koda off to Astrid, Hiccup said, "We'll be back in a few hours... hopefully. Take good care of Koda. If you could, you know, sleep with her, share your body heat, that'd be great, Astrid. She gets cold because she's so small and has no colo- OKAY, Toothless!" Toothless had, during Hiccup's rant, been bucking the boy in his saddle impatiently.

"Don't worry, we'll all be here waiting for you, Hiccup. Just try to come back to us safely." Astrid assured him, and with a few more farewells, Hiccup, Toothless, and Sky took to the air, headed straight for Outcast Island.

Glancing over his shoulder at Sky, who was flying beside them, Hiccup told him, "Hey, Sky, I know it might not have seemed like much, but... The fact that my father was concerned about your well-being- and showed it, for that matter- is kind of a big deal for him. I mean, I think he might be starting to warm up to you."

"Sounded more like pity to me, but either way. Stoick's not one for pity, either." Toothless added.

"It's rare for him to be so supportive, which is both awesome and troubling. I'm trying to focus on the awesome." He inhaled deeply, taking in the crisp night air, "Yeah. We can do this."

It was a long and quiet flight to Outcast Island, and when they finally saw the flickering lights from torches below, they paused in the air for a moment. "Alright, keep moving, and stay within shouting distance," Hiccup instructed Sky, "Hit as many buildings as you can, but try to avoid going after the Outcasts directly. We need most of them to be alive so they can attack the Isle of Night." He was quiet for a spell before he said finally, "I can't believe this is really happening. We're really doing this."

"Don't lose faith now," Toothless warned, "We're only just getting started. Go, Sky!" With this, the two dragons split up and began firing at the island.

It wasn't long before the entire island was crawling with Outcasts, and Hiccup was squinting to get a good look at them, trying to see what their strategy was, where Alvin was, and, "...Is that what we looked like? They're just running around in circles!"

"Well, there were usually other dragons that the Vikings were fighting on Berk, but for the most part... Yes. The circles thing always amused me." Toothless said over his shoulder between blasts. Hiccup and Toothless had both been so distracted by the conversation that they hadn't noticed they had lost their cloud cover. Though they were still nearly invisible against the night sky, _nearly_ wasn't quite good enough when an island full of Outcasts were staring into the sky looking for heard a loud whirring sound and looked down at Toothless, "What's that noise?"

"It sounds almost like a bola, but it couldn't be, not this high- AGH!" That was the last thing Hiccup heard before the rock from a bola hit him in the head, rendering him unconscious.

* * *

Poor kid. Build him up just to tear him down... LITERALLY. This chapter is dedicated to my neighbor's dog who had to be put down today. Rest in peace, Jazz, we'll always love you.


	19. A Very Strange Thing, Indeed

It was several hours later when Hiccup finally came to. What time exactly, he couldn't be sure- it's hard to tell time in a cave. Groaning, he attempted to stand, only to fall flat on his face. The Outcasts were, in fact, capable of learning from their own mistakes, apparently. They had taken his prosthetic leg away so he had nothing to use as a weapon. "Well this is just... perfect. I get captured and locked up by the Outcasts and I can't even stand on my own. Even if I managed to escape, they'd catch me again before I got to Toothless." He mumbled to himself, forcing himself into an upright position. "So much for that plan."

Meanwhile, an island in terror!

"Where's Hiccup?! He should be here by now!" Astrid complained, not really thinking that anyone would hear her as she paced back and forth in front of the dragon stables where Hiccup was last seen and supposed to meet up with them.

"Certainly not here. I can't seem to find Stoick, either," Gobber responded, "I called off class at the Academy for today. This seemed just a wee bit more important."

Fuming, Astrid whirled around to find Stormfly standing right behind her, looking rather concerned. "Stormfly... Hiccup's not back yet... I'm really worried." The dragon raised her head and crowed into the sky before nuzzling Astrid gently. "What was _that?"_

Before Astrid had the chance to think, they were surrounded by the other teens and their dragons. "Hookfang, we've been over this- I don't do early morning flights like that moron Hiccup." Snotlout mumbled, his head dropping onto the Nightmare's.

On closer inspection, Astrid found that nearly _all_ of the others were half asleep, but the dragons were rearing and ready to go. "Well it's a good thing you're here." She said, climbing onto Stormfly's back, "We've got to go save Hiccup."

"Save Hiccup? That's never good." Ruffnut grumbled.

"Yeah, he doesn't get into things that are _easy_ to fix." Tuffnut agreed with a yawn.

Climbing aboard Thornado, who had been following him like a lost puppy all morning, Gobber shouted, "Oh, wake up ya limpets! Hiccup's been kidnapped by the Outcasts!"

"I'm sorry, _AGAIN?!"_ Snotlout demanded, suddenly very much awake and annoyed, "I woke up to save Hiccup from the Outcasts _AGAIN?!_ Hookfang, put me down! I'm going back to sleep!" Before Snotlout- or any of the others, for that matter- could move to get off of their dragons, the beasts suddenly took to the air and began flying in the general direction of Outcast Island, which started a whole new round of whining from Snotlout and the twins.

"I still wish I knew where Stoick's gone off to. It's not like him to disappear without warning like that, I mean, he _is_ Stoick the _Vast._ Vast things aren't supposed to disappear." Gobber mumbled, trying to figure out where the man could possibly have gone.

Astrid heaved an annoyed sigh, "I'm more worried about where _Sky_ has gone. He's supposed to be with them, you'd think he would have warned us if something went wrong, unless he decided to betray us again." Stormfly snorted in agreement with this, not particularly fond of the sapphire Night Fury.

"What about betrayal?" Fishlegs wondered aloud.

With another sigh, Astrid opened her mouth to explain when suddenly there was movement coming in from the East. No, not just movement. A _swarm_ of flying... things. "Are those birds?" She wondered aloud, being too far away to really be able to tell.

"I'd say those are Night Furies." Gobber provided, squinting to get a better look, "And look! There's Stoick!"

Toothless Time

"-And it's just so _like_ Sky to abandon us like that! I swear, if they'd take this muzzle off..." Toothless mumbled, struggling to talk to himself through the muzzle. This time, his playing dying trick hadn't worked. Apparently the guards had learned their lesson... And he really couldn't think of any other way to get to Hiccup, barring a miracle. And then it came. His ears perked, listening intently to a sonic whine followed by an explosion, and several more followed. "What in Thor's name...?" He heard guards being tossed aside, some screaming and running away, then in came Sky, nearly passing Toothless up until the younger Night Fury asked incredulously, "SKY?!"

Sky whirled around and blasted a hole through Toothless' cage without a second thought before bounding over to undo the other's restraints, "Miss me?"

"You abandoned us!"

"I went for _help."_ Sky corrected, looking Toothless in the eye seriously, "I told you, I'm not like that anymore."

Toothless was quiet for a moment before he bumped his head against Sky's affectionately, "They took Hiccup away, but I think I know where he is."

"Flamewing's already on it." Sky said nonchalantly, "Let's get out of here for now before they trap us in here."

Wait, did he say FLAMEWING?!

A very mopey Hiccup was surprised to hear yells of anguish and the sounds of guards being thrown out of the way. He'd been hearing booming sounds in the distance, but had assumed it was cannon fire against Astrid and the others who had likely come to save him. What he wasn't expecting to see was Flamewing come charging over to his cell only to blow it down with a plasma blast. "Flamewing! I- How did you- Why-?"

"There'll be time for talk later. I can't leave my pack on the battlefield without me." The great dragon jerked his head, gesturing for Hiccup to get on his back, "Let's get out of here." With much difficulty, having only one leg, Hiccup managed to hobble over to Flamewing and heave himself onto the Night Fury's back, grabbing on tight just before the dragon bolted out into the chaos.

Truly, it was, chaos. Explosions from cannons, as Hiccup had expected, were drowned out by the roars of plasma blasts and Thornado. In the fray, Hiccup managed to spot Sky and Toothless and called out to them. "TOOTHLESS!" His dragon looked up at Hiccup and ran even faster at the sight of him, making a beeline straight for him. Hiccup initially planned on standing on Flamewing's back and jumping down to Toothless, but then he realized, "His tail... Toothless can't fly."

Flamewing glanced over his shoulder, "I thought you fixed that?!" He demanded.

"I did, but- my leg... That prosthetic leg is the key to controlling that tail fin." Hiccup admitted, "The Outcasts must have taken it from me because of what happened last time-"

"Save your war stories," Flamewing snapped at him, "Where are they keeping your leg?"

"I have no idea," Hiccup admitted, "I was unconscious by the time we hit the ground." Looking down at the ground below him, he added, "But I think I have a plan. If your Night Furies can keep the Outcasts distracted long enough, I can get Toothless on one of their ships and we can steal it..." He paused before mumbling, "Only problem is, I don't know how to steer a ship, especially with all those sails. It might be better if my father or Gobber took the wheel." As if on cue, Flamewing veered toward Thornado and Stoick, who were both yelling at the Outcasts and shouting orders to the other Vikings and dragons. "Dad!" Hiccup yelled, but of course, this was not enough to get his father's attention. Hiccup never was particularly good at yelling. Flamewing roared at the pair, andx that seemed to get their attention much more quickly. "Thank you, Flamewing," Hiccup murmured, before looking up to Stoick, "Dad, Toothless can't fly. The Outcasts took my leg when I was unconscious, but I have an idea-" Thornado lost altitude suddenly as a cannonball rushed just above Stoick's head.

"Go on," Stoick encouraged. He knew they didn't have much time- it wouldn't be long before their dragons ran out of shots and they would have to leave Toothless stranded.

"We can steal one of their ships. It'll be cramped since Toothless is so big, but it's better than nothing. I've asked Flamewing, and he's miraculously agreed to keep the Outcasts distracted while we get away." The boy explained, "But I can't sail a ship, so I'll need you or Gobber to come down with me."

Stoick seemed to consider this for a moment before shouting back to Gobber, "Gobber! We're going down, Hiccup, Toothless, and I are going to take a ship back to Berk! You're in charge- keep 'em distracted until we set sail, then lead everyone back to Berk when you're through, we'll catch up to you!"

Gobber grinned and saluted his chief, "You got it, Stoick! Leave it to us!"

After Fishlegs accidentally lured the Outcasts that had been shooting at Stoick away with a shot from Meatlug, Flamewing and Thornado came to land on the docks. Of course, the moment Stoick was off of Thornado, he picked Hiccup up in his arms and carried him like one might carry an infant, as his dragon took Gobber back into battle. "_Daaad_..." Hiccup complained, though he knew he was really in no position to.

Sky and Toothless had just caught up, "Hiccup! What happened to your leg?" Toothless asked worriedly.

"The Outcasts took it, never mind that now, pick a boat and get on it, Toothless. We can't fly, so we're going to sail." Stoick commanded, then, with a nod to Flamewing, he added, "You go do what you have to."

Flamewing snorted proudly and called to Sky, "Let's go keep those Outcasts distracted!" Within seconds, the two were out of sight, shooting at the island from above. Once Hiccup, Toothless, ad Stoick were all safely aboard one of the Outcast ships, Stoick cut the lines loose and pushed off, and they were on their way home. By the time any of the Outcasts noticed it was missing, they would already be halfway back to Berk.

Hiccup, who was seated on Toothless' saddle for lack of anywhere else to sit, muttered, "Sorry, dad. I wasn't paying enough attention to cloud cover... I don't know what they did, but-"

"They had a spare bola launcher. It wasn't as powerful as the other one, though." Stoick grumbled, his eyes cast out to the sea.

"A spare...? The prototype!" Hiccup smacked a hand to his forehead, "Agh, I can't believe I forgot about that!"

"Well never mind, that Flamewing took care of it before we met up with Thornado and Gobber, and I sent him to find you." Stoick assured the boy, and Hiccup blinked, looking down at Toothless, who seemed just as confused as he was.

After several minutes of silence, trying to work out what possibly could have happened in his mind, Hiccup finally asked, "Am I hearing you correctly? You sent Flamewing, who we were _certain_ was going to kill us all the second he set his eyes on Sky, to _save_ me?"

Stoick shrugged, "You could say we've come to an agreement."

"He can talk to dragons now, too?" Toothless wondered aloud, testing his theory with the question. When Stoick didn't respond right away, he decided, "I guess not. What the Hel is going on here?"

"Yeah, dad, what's going on?" Hiccup translated, "None of this is making any sense! How can you make an agreement with someone you can't understand?"

Stoick turned to Hiccup and replied bluntly, "Well, there's one thing that wasn't lost in translation. We're both fathers who don't know what to do with... this." He gestured non-specifically to Hiccup and Toothless.

Hiccup rolled his eyes, "Oh, great, you've bonded over our uselessness."

"Better than the alternative," Toothless muttered, though he clearly wasn't happy about it either.

"I suppose," Hiccup agreed, then, remembering that his father wouldn't know what he was supposing, he added, "It _is_ better than starting World War One with the Night Furies."

"I still don't really understand it, but then, neither of them are very easy to understand, are they?" Toothless murmured to Hiccup, who smiled a bit and nodded in agreement.

"Sometimes I can't tell who's worse." There was a pause in which both of them were silent before Hiccup finally said, "Aw, who am I kidding?"

"Right, it's pretty clear when you think about it," Toothless agreed.

Then, simultaneously, they said, "It's gotta be mine, for sure." Their eyes met for a moment before both boy and dragon burst into laughter. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep that had made them delirious, or perhaps it was that they were giddy from being rescued, or the sheer insanity of the situation... But perhaps the most likely reason is that they had finally come to terms with one another, and with each others' fathers, in that single, shared moment.

* * *

Yes, this chapter is short, and I'm sorry, but I've been working on something else, my own story (including dragons!) Right now I'm just trying to get the world all worked out, but it should be pretty interesting once it gets going. Anyway, I've been doing research for that, so that's what's taking so long. That and I was holding off in hopes of getting one more review to bring it up to 100, so I could say "YAY! 100 REVIEWS!" But that was pretty clearly not going to happen. -_-; Anyway, umm... There was another thing... OH! I did a new trick I'm trying out with this chapter, so tell me what you think. I call it the "What the FUCK just happened" technique, wherein I do something very what the fuck, drop a few hints but don't really explain anything until the next chapter.

ALSO! The chapter title is something that was said in How to Train Your Viking by Toothless (translated from Dragonese by Cressida Cowell, I don't own it either way). It's not a really MAJOR line in the story, but, you know, I liked it. And it works. I like making ties between the book series and this fic, even if they are few and far between.


	20. Understanding the Un-understandable

So, I'm sure you're all wondering how Stoick came to an understanding with a creature he can't understand. An excellent question, indeed. Allow me to break it down for you.

* * *

What Sky REALLY did when he saw Toothless go down

Sky was having a whale of a time blowing things up on Outcast Island, perhaps even _too_ much fun, really, and he was considering how to bring this up to Hiccup when they returned to Berk, if he would be allowed to destroy things on a regular basis. That might make life with humans a bit more bearable. Just as he was preparing to swoop past them with a giddy battle cry when he saw the bola come flying out of nowhere and froze in midair, watching them fall helplessly. Of course he could have _tried_ carrying them, but there was no way he could support the weight of both Toothless and Hiccup all the way back to Berk. They'd all drown in the ocean if he tried. But there was one far more realistic alternative. If he could convince Flamewing... But no, that wouldn't work, either, Flamewing would overreact to his tail and wouldn't listen to anything he tried to say edgewise. And so, he found himself wondering, "What would Hiccup do?" Well, the same thing he did _every_ time something went wrong. Something crazy, potentially suicidal, and just insane enough to work.

He'd actually gotten this idea directly from Hiccup himself, the fact that, even without speech, it _is_ possible for humans and dragons to understand one another on some level, and he was trusting that the story Hiccup had told Pixie and the other hatchlings when he finally arrived back on Berk. It was still the middle of the night, and he'd made good time, as he was in a bit of a hurry. Without much difficulty, he located the home of Stoick the Vast and Hiccup and entered through the skylight window that was intended for Toothless to get in and out of Hiccups room. From there, he went downstairs and made quite the ruckus, knocking things over with his tail as he tried to figure out where Stoick's room was. Eventually, the noise got to the man, who came out in his pajamas with an axe in hand, prepared to defend his home against an intruder, but was surprised when his eyes fell on the shadowy outline of a Night Fury. "Toothless? What are ya doin' down here?" Lighting a nearby candle, the chief found that it was not Toothless, but rather Sky who was rooting around his home. "Sky... Where is Hiccup?" He asked, suddenly very awake.

Sky whimpered and looked up at him concerned, "The Outcasts got to him and Toothless," He replied, though he knew the man wouldn't understand. Neither of them moved for several minutes until finally, Sky, sick of wasting time, circled around behind Stoick and forced his head between the man's legs before bolting out the door and taking to the sky, "If I can't tell you, I'll just have to _show_you!" Of course, he knew that he and Stoick couldn't take on an entire island alone, and he was also all too well aware of the fact that the other dragons wouldn't trust his word, so he'd have a hard time convincing them to come along. No, he'd have to try something far more drastic.

Stoick, who seemed to have gotten the idea, was holding onto Sky for dear life, "Where are ya goin', ya crazy dragon?! We can't take on the Outcasts alone, we have to go back and get help!" Sky hissed over his shoulder and continued flying, and it was then that Stoick realized, "This is the way to the Isle of Night, isn't it? Yer goin' to _them_ for help?" This time, Sky let out a loud trill in response, hoping the noise sounded affirmative. The whole rest of the agonizing, eight-hour flight consisted almost entirely of Stoick complaining about how they shouldn't be looking to the enemy for help and him praying to the Gods for a solution while Sky did his best to tune the man out. He was now beginning to get a better understanding of what Toothless and Hiccup went through every day with this man. Living with humans was back to sounding like a bad idea again.

Regardless, they eventually made it to the island where Sky used the Night Fury call to lure his family out of their cavern. Flamewing and Moonsilver, being the alphas, were the first to come out and investigate. "Sky?" Moonsilver recognized the younger Night Fury immediately and ran to him, "Oh, what happened to you, poor thing!" She nuzzled under Sky's chin and began licking the gash on his head. Apparently she hadn't noticed the tail just yet.

Flamewing was a bit more uncertain, "Why have you brought a human?" The alpha challenged, "Have they brainwashed you, too?"

Sky flinched and recoiled from Moonsilver's tongue, "It's not like that, they-" Unfortunately, in his scramble backwards, Sky had inadvertently drawn his tail in front of him, allowing Moonsilver and Flamewing to see the prosthetic.

Flamewing growled, "You're no different than my traitorous son!" With this, he lunged at Sky's tail, and the Night Fury yelped, but was surprised when Stoick came between them.

"STOP!" Stoick commanded. In his experience, the best way to get anyone or anything to do what you wanted was yelling at the offender with gusto. This worked for a moment until Flamewing remembered that he ought to be offended by a human addressing him and began spitting nasty insults in dragonese, but Stoick held his hand up to silence him, "Listen, I know what you're thinking, I know how you feel. 'Only the strong can belong,' right? I know, I used to think the same..." Flamewing fell silent, though he was still glaring daggers at the man. "You've got a whole pack to take care of, what's the point in keeping another mouth to feed? They'll just get in the way, and they don't even make up for it in battle... But I'm here to tell you, that isn't true. Generation upon generation of Viking heroes have had disabilities like Sky's, they've lost a leg or an arm, but sometimes with the help of a false limb, they can walk again. They can _fight_ again. And let me tell you, a man with an axe for an are can be far more formidable than a man carrying an axe. Although I suppose that's not exactly true for Sky," He glanced over his shoulder at the dragon, "It's probably not true for Toothless, either, or even my own son, Hiccup... Yet they are the hope for the future of our tribe. And do you know why that is, Flamewing? Because of their minds." The chief pointed to his own helmet to demonstrate, "Sometimes being physically weak brings out other aspects of people- and dragons. Like Hiccup, for example. He wasn't strong enough to properly carry an axe, let alone fight a dragon- and because of that, we have found peace with the dragons, aside from you lot."

"And Toothless is no different!" Stoick went on, "Hiccup told me a little story Toothless told him. Now, I heard that Toothless destroyed the other eggs of your clutch, isn't that right?" Moonsilver whimpered at the memory and turned to leave, not wanting to hear any more of this conversation. "But you never asked him _why_ he did that, did you?" She paused, listening. "Sometimes they do things we don't understand because they figure these things out before us. They don't think like we do, they don't act like we do, they don't even have the same _morals_ as us. Toothless _did_ have a reason, and it was NOT to betray you... He had a suspicion that the eggs of your clutch were sabotaged, and wanted to see the truth for himself."

Flamewing snorted indignantly, "Sabotaged? What does he take us for, savages?!"

Sky's earplates slicked back against his head at this, his eyes downcast as he pawed at the ground nervously. He hadn't been expecting this turn of events. "And do you know what ELSE?" Stoick went on, his voice rising with the anticipation of revealing this long-kept secret, "Toothless was _right!_ He found that all of the other eggs in your clutch had been torched! All that was left was charred remains of what would have been his siblings." With this, the man grabbed Sky by thee scruff of his neck and dragged him forward, "Don't take my word for it. Sky, if what's happened in these past few days means _anything_ to you... Tell them what happened to their children. They deserve to know."

Sky whimpered and tried to back off, but found his path blocked by Stoick. Pressing himself to the ground, he averted his gaze, looking anywhere but at Moonsilver and Flamewing, who were drawing nearer, "Sky? What is this simpleton talking about?" Moonsilver asked softly, her gentle voice gaining a bit of an edge.

"I.. I'm sorry," Sky managed, "I just... I wanted to stay in Flamewing's good graces as the most promising... I thought maybe if I... If I could just eliminate the threat, no one would ever know... But Toothless, I didn't keep the fire on him long enough because I heard you coming to check on them- I never meant any harm!"

Enraged, Flamewing charged at Sky, but again, Stoick came between them, "Hold on! I know you probably want to kill him- I know I've wanted to for some time now, myself, but if you understand what _really_ happened, then you know that Toothless is not to blame for his plight. All those years living in exile, and _none_ of it was his fault." Flamewing froze, considering this, "And now, they're in danger. Our sons, in an insane attempt to get the three of us 'alphas' on the same level, attacked the Outcasts, and have, apparently, been kidnapped. Sky knows more details on that than I do- he's the one that came to get me in the first place. Coming here was his idea."

"They got hit by a bola launched from a machine like the one that got me before," Sky explained, "I was helping them, I'm trying to change, I want to make it up to them... That's why I brought this man here, I'm trying to make amends... I know nothing I can do can ever make up for it, but... I really am sorry, and I'm trying my best..."

"Never mind that now," Flamewing growled, still quite clearly later, "The time for talking has come to an end. EVERYONE! It's time for war!" At this, a horde of Night Furies raced out of the cavern and lined up in an orderly fashion behind Flamewing and Moonsilver, and, moments later, Stoick was on the back of Flamewing, soaring through the night sky. It was poetic, really, chief and alpha working together to rescue their misunderstood sons who had intended to bring everyone together in the first place.

* * *

And THAT is how it went down. Now, I ask again, please tell me what you thought about my "what just happened" technique now that you've seen what's come of it. Also, I know this was another short chapter, but I prefer to think of the two of them as almost one, because really, this one took place at an earlier time than the last, I just kinda screwed with the orders to mess with you all. (Which is why I ask what you thought.)

Also tell me what you thought about this chapter in general. I thought it was really epic, myself, how Stoick was able to handle the dragons and how Sky still hasn't been murdered. How many times can one dragon narrowly escape murder? Oh, and HAPPY CHAPTER 20! And 100+ reviews!


	21. Not About the Tail, About the Tale

Gobber, the teens, and the Night Furies valiantly distracted the Outcasts for quite some time after Hiccup and Stoick left. When he supposed they had gotten enough of a head start, Gobber boomed, "ALRIGHT! FALL BACK! AND DESTROY THEIR FLEET, IF YOU CAN!" He knew that most of the dragons were nearly, if not entirely, out of shots by now, but hopefully Flamewing's Night Furies would get the message and help out. They seemed to, for by the time they turned around to head back to Berk, every last one of the Outcast Ships were on fire- except, of course, for the one ahead of them with Stoick, Hiccup, and Toothless. Much to Gobber's surprise (and displeasure) the Night Furies seemed to be _following_ them back to Berk.

"Um, I hate to ask, but... What are they doing?" Fishlegs whimpered, pointing back to the horde of Night Furies.

"Hopefully not following us back to do to Berk what they did here!" Gobber chuckled, seemingly unconcerned. In truth, he was quite terrified- but Vikings laugh in the face of death. So that's what he was doing.

"I don't think that's it," Astrid murmured, "They're not attacking us."

Fishlegs, who was already quite panicked, yelled, "Well that's because they need someone to follow!"

"But Flamewing saved Hiccup!" Astrid protested, "There's got to be something more going on..."

Indeed, she was right. When they landed back on Berk, they found that somehow, Stoick, Toothless, and Hiccup had managed to beat them back, and were waiting for them on the shore, and for some reason, when Gobber and the teens landed, all of the Night Furies did, too. Sky was the first of them to touch the ground, and he raced over to Hiccup and Toothless for protection from Flamewing, who had been shouting insults at him the whole flight there. "He's gonna kill me," Sky whined, pressing himself against Hiccup.

"That's right I am. I'll give you a five second warning to stop touching Hiccup!" Toothless growled, though he had a much more playful air about him than he did when he threatened Sky previously.

"Not you, Flamewing!" Sky corrected.

Toothless seemed confused, "You're being ridiculous. My father _adores_ you."

"Correction- _adored_." Sky grumbled.

Before the situation could get out of hand, Hiccup assured them both calmly, "Nobody's going to kill anyone. Let's just have a nice, peaceful meeting and everything will be fine." Finally, all of the Night Furies found places to land on the overcrowded beach. Most of them, and the dragons of Berk, had curled up to take naps, which was about what Sky, Toothless, and Hiccup wanted to do after pulling an all-nighter with the Outcasts, but as Flamewing, Moonsilver, and two Night Furies he didn't recognize stepped forward, it became quite clear that that wasn't going to happen. There was an eerie silence as all conscious eyes fell upon the six Night Furies and Hiccup, who cleared his throat awkwardly. He never much liked being the center of attention.

Surprisingly, another, much smaller voice broke the silence, calling out "Hiccup~ Sky~ Toothless!" Hiccup, who was already standing unsteadily on one leg, was suddenly bowled over by a tiny white blur of scales. It was Koda. "I was so worried!" She complained, licking the boy's cheek, "That stupid human you left me with made me sleep by her stinky hind paws! And then she wouldn't even let me come with to save you guys, she COMPLETELY forgot about me!"

"I'm... I'm sorry to hear that?" Hiccup stammered, more of a question than a sentence.

"Pixie, behave," Toothless hissed under his breath. He reverted to using Pixie's former name because he wasn't quite sure how the others would take to it. It was bad enough that she was acting like a literal human lapdog. "We have company."

Koda blinked and raised her head to see Flamewing's chin just inches from her face. With a startled yelp, she retreated and hid between Toothless' legs, "I-I wasn't expecting you, Sir!"

Sitting up and wiping the slobber off of his face, Hiccup said, "Neither was I." He turned to Flamewing curiously, "My father said you reached some sort of agreement?"

Flamewing snorted, "I wouldn't call it that, it's more of an _understanding_, really."

Hiccup frowned in confusion, "Okay, that makes even less sense. How can you come to an understanding with someone you can't, you know, _understand?"_

"We have much in common, your father and I," Flamewing mumbled, "But that's not important now. The main thing I've come to say is that Sky is hereby banished from the Isle of Night, and I'm raising my ban on you, Toothless. You're a welcome member of our pack." He moved to lick Toothless' cheek apologetically, but Toothless recoiled.

"What, am I supposed to be _grateful?"_ He snapped, "I don't want to be a part of your stupid pack! I've tasted freedom, and I _love_ it! I'm staying right here with Hiccup." Toothless proclaimed firmly, "So you can take your precious Sky back, if having a false fin doesn't matter to you any more."

"Toothless..." Hiccup was completely in awe of his dragon's reaction. Here was Hiccup, struggling every day for just a _little_ bit of acceptance from his tribe, and Toothless, who was being offered that acceptance that Hiccup had similarly so longed for was giving it all up without hesitation for _him?_ "You can go if you want, buddy, I'll still come visit you," He tried, but Toothless wasn't listening to him. His expression was proud and solid as a stone- he wasn't going anywhere.

"That's all well and good," Sky mumbled glumly, "But it's not about our tails."

Hiccup looked over to Sky, then back to Flamewing, "Then perhaps someone could tell me what it _is_ about?"

"That _traitor_," Flamewing spat, "Is responsible for the loss of my young!"

"You _told_ them?!" Hiccup gasped, his eyes meeting Sky's sad blue ones.

"Your father didn't give me much choice," He mumbled, averting his gaze.

Hiccup furrowed his brow, "_My_ father? What's he got to do with any of this?"

"He made me tell them," Sky grumbled, thinking that was obvious enough, "He told them what Toothless found in the eggs and made me tell them my side of it. I didn't have any choice- he was blocking my path for one, and two, I'd never be able to get you two out on my own."

Hiccup wasn't sure whether to be angry with his father or flattered that Sky had done something so self-sacrificial for their sake. Toothless, on the other hand, was quick to start blurting insults, "Stupid whale of a man! Why, why, WHY does NO ONE respect my privacy in these matters?!"

"Easy, Toothless," Hiccup chuckled, resting a hand on the dragon's shoulder. Deciding that Toothless was angry enough for the both of them, he turned to Flamewing and said, "It doesn't matter, anyway, about Sky's banishment. That's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, 'Pixies' and dragons with disabilities."

"How did this happen?" Sky's mother, another impressively massive (though still not _quite_ as large as Flamewing,) ebony Night Fury stepped forth to examine her son's tail.

"Ah, okay, so... Things got a _little_ bit out-of-hand."

"On more than one occasion," Koda provided, trying to be helpful.

Hiccup winced and amended his statement, "Right, okay, a couple times..."

"And more than a little. Both times Sky would've been done for if others hadn't intervened." The young dragoness chirped.

Glancing down at Koda, Hiccup snapped, "Who's side are you on, anyway?" Of course, he found it nearly impossible to stay angry with the youngling for long, and when he turned back to the grown Night Furies he had calmed some. "The first time, Toothless... I dunno, he just completely _lost_ it and took off Sky's tailfin... But my father and Thornado, the Thunderdrum, managed to snap him back to his senses."

For a moment, Hiccup thought he saw a proud glint in Flamewing's eye, that was confirmed when he said, "That's his royal blood, that is. We alphas can go into a state of tunnel vision. All we see and hear is our opponents unless something physically intervenes. Show no mercy, show no emotions aside from your hatred."

"That sounds terrifying." Hiccup admitted dryly.

"That's why you humans should mind your manners around us." Flamewing scoffed.

Toothless snorted and looked away, "It's not something I'm proud of."

"Right..." Hiccup gently rubbed the side of Toothless' head, "Anyway, the rest of the wounds were from the other dragons. Apparently they all ganged up on Sky in the middle of the night with the intentions of killing him, but the noise woke Toothless and we went down there to straighten things out... So that's what happened to Sky."

"So can we tell them now?" Koda whined, "Tell them your idea!"

Hiccup, who had been waiting for the right moment to bring the subject to the table, began, "So, I had this though... I mean, I know to you, Flamewing, Pixies and disabled dragons like Toothless and Sky are of no use to you, just another mouth to feed, right?"

Flamewing eyed him suspiciously, "I'm listening...?"

"But to _us,_ _any_ Night Fury would be most helpful. As you saw with the Outcasts, we have... some problems, with other Viking tribes, and if they're going to start learning how to train dragons, we're going to need a leg up in the competition, which Night Furies would be perfect for- I mean, I don't have to tell _you_ how superior Night Furies are to other dragons." He flattered, which seemed to have a bit of an effect on Flamewing, who puffed up with pride. "So I thought that since they're of no use to you and will probably be banished and/or killed anyway, why don't you send those Night Furies to Berk? I mean, look at Sky and Toothless- I got them flying again. And maybe if they become strong enough here, they can prove their worth to you somehow to ask for acceptance back into the pack. We could even make a celebration out of it- I mean, if you wanted to..." Hiccup let it trail off there. He'd said his piece and sown the seed, now all that was left was to see if Flamewing would accept it.

The great dragon was silent for a long time before he finally said, "I'll consider it... In the meantime, Toothless, I'd like you to consider my offer, as well."

"I don-" Toothless began, but Hiccup quickly cut him off.

"Toothless, just _consider_ it." The boy murmured.

Though he clearly wasn't going to put much thought or effort into the decision, Toothless eventually agreed, "I will _consider_ it. Don't expect much."

And one more small thing, Flamewing," Hiccup called out when he saw the dragon turning to leave, "I know you're still not particularly fond of us humans, but... Do you think there's any chance we can call a truce?"

"And can I stay here with Hiccup and Sky and Toothless?" Koda chirped, clawing her way up onto Hiccup's shoulder.

Flamewing snorted in what was either disgust or annoyance and grunted, "The Pixie can stay for now. As for a truce... As long as I don't find any other humans on my island."

Sky, who was rather used to Flamewing's subtleties and way of speaking after spending so many years as his adviser, asked for clarification, "_Other_ humans?"

"The human Pixie is one of our own, now." With this, Flamewing took off, and the other Night Furies followed suit.

Hiccup smiled to himself. Of course "the human pixie" might be confusing to most, but he knew what it meant. Flamewing had accepted him as a member of the pack. Turning to address his father, Hiccup found himself nose-to-nose with Snotlout. "Oh, uh, hey... Snotlout..." He took a few steps back, rubbing his neck awkwardly.

Pointing after the disappearing shapes of the Night Furies, Snotlout demanded, "What did you just do? It was like you were _talking_ to them!"

Rather frustrated, Hiccup glanced over at Toothless and grumbled, "You know, I think I know what you mean. It's impossible to keep a secret around here, between the dragons and the humans! I don't know _how_ I managed to keep you from them for so long." Then, completely ignoring Snotlout, he continued, "Flamewing and I have called a truce. From now on, nobody but me is to go to the Isle of Night, and we probably shouldn't even talk about it any more. He said he'd consider my idea for allowing runts and disabled Night Furies to stay here on Berk, and..." Glancing over at Sky apologetically, he added, "Sky has been banished from their pack."

"What?! Why?" Astrid wondered, having only heard one side of the conversation.

"Apparently my father got Sky to confess as to what really happened to the alpha's clutch." Hiccup replied honestly, "So he's been officially banished, but the good news is, they've agreed to consider allowing the runts to stay here on Berk. In the meantime, they seem to have forgotten Koda." He gestured to the youngling as he went on, "To give you an idea of how little they care about the runts. I know I recognized her mother's face in that crowd."

"Sometimes she pretends not to notice me," Koda confessed quietly, pawing at the ground.

"Yeah, well... You don't have to explain that feeling to me." The boy assured her, lightly patting the young dragon on the head.

Snotlout, enraged that nobody was explaining anything to him finally demanded, "WHAT is going on?! It's a DRAGON, Hiccup! Dragons can't talk! Why is no one else reacting to this?!"

* * *

Short chapter again, but I wanted to get this in because it's been so long- with good reason. I had a bit of everything block (from writing to sleeping to eating) because I was stressed. You see, I was recently diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and I had to go for two weeks on a low iodine diet. For those of you who don't know, iodine is (at least in America) in nearly everything we eat. Nearly all salt in America is infused with iodine to prevent goiters, and because nearly everything is made with sodium, well, nearly everything has iodine. So I could have homemade things with salt as long as it was un-iodized, but couldn't trust anything else. Also, dairy products (because they wash milking machines and udders with iodine,) red dye, and eggs were on the do-not-eat list. Because I'm a picky eater to begin with, that was hell for me.

Anyway, on Wednesday I was admitted to the hospital and given radioactive iodine, then put into radioactive isolation where I had no computer, because I was told that anything I brought in with me would have to be thrown away (turned out that wasn't true, but I had no way of knowing that.) So until yesterday I was stuck in the hospital where the doctors and nurses wore paper gowns and booties when they came in to visit me and treated me as if I had the plague, there was absolutely NOTHING good on TV, and my view out the window was of the rusting air conditioning unit. So I was doing a lot of writing for a different story, this one an original work of fiction, not a fanfic, and I've been rather obsessing over it because it's my baby. This means I probably won't be writing fanfics as much which means updates on this story may be few and far between because I've actually got a plot going on and I'm really excited about this story and the world in which it takes place.


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